Berceuse
by hollelujah
Summary: Being a single woman and being a single mom are universes apart.
1. A Contrario

Some things are better left unsaid.

Olivia can't remember a time when spoken words weren't barbed, more often than not, with ugliness. Hateful criticisms, scornful accusations, the occasional insult just for the hell of it. She can remember her mother, heaving herself up from the kitchen floor, clinging to Olivia's shoulder and muttering obscenities about kids who don't stay in bed when they're told. She can still feel the slim fingers digging into her arm, the manicured nails stinging her skin through her nightshirt.

She remembers the dead weight of her mother after an evening with the bottle that ended with Serena attempting to lullaby her little girl to sleep and blacking out halfway through a pitchy, cracked rendition of Hap Palmer's "Old Rocking Chair."

Dusk covers the valley, stars slowly come into sight…

She can remember the lyrics shakily spilling out of her mother's mouth, floating past her face on a soft, vodka-scented breeze.

Birds chatter among the trees, before…

Before…

G'night Libby.

Sometimes, even now, she'll wake up in the quiet dark of her bedroom and hear Serena Benson's soft snoring in her ear, feel the oppressive weight of her on her chest. It was smothering, but drunken affection is better than none, and she maintains a love-hate relationship with this memory and the woman who made it.

It's maudlin, she realizes, but she knows that lullaby by heart now, though she never heard her mother finish it. She relives that night more than she should, sometimes adjusting history to allow her mother to finish the song before kissing Olivia goodnight and taking herself to the queen sized bed in their apartment's master bedroom. Sometimes she allows the truth to take over, and remembers to let it abbreviate her mother's song and bear down on her ribs for the night.

Small wonder she's learned to carry heavy things by herself.

*

Some things are better left unseen.

Huang is discussing a victim who has chosen to terminate her rapist's unborn child and has made psychological leaps and bounds through her initial recovery. She's not the same, he says, never the same. But healing. Hopeful.

Olivia feels his eyes are on her and makes a conscious, will-driven effort not to react. Not to grab his chin and use brute force to make him look at Huang, who is still speaking about a woman who has taken advantage of a procedure that her own mother couldn't legally procure. Everyone knows Olivia's story, the abominable way in which she was conceived. It shouldn't bother her that Elliot automatically tries to gauge her reaction whenever shit like this comes up. Rapes happen. Pregnancies happen. Abortions happen. It shouldn't bother her. It shouldn't.

It shouldn't, but fuck if it doesn't. She can feel the pity leaking onto her from his gaze and fights an irrational urge to growl at him. It's ironic that two years ago she would have felt overwhelmed with joy at his solicitude and attention; now she catches herself flinching when they unexpectedly make eye contact. She's still not sure which rights as his partner she can retain and which went home with him to Kathy.

Olivia's phone rings and she is grateful for the interruption. Damn Huang anyway, with his calm demeanor and his psychobabble and those eyes that calmly pierce your skull while he quietly presses on. Allow yourself to experience pain in order to heal, he has told her on at least three separate occasions. She's not sure, but the pain may be less from the shit she deals with everyday and more from this infuriatingly self-assured shrink who insists on climbing inside her skull and stirring everything up. She pictures Huang inside her head in cover-alls and galoshes, sloshing his way through the faces of the fuckholes she's dealt with and the victims they've left in their wake. Pain, he states quietly, but it echoes in her skull. Allow yourself the pain.

Warner is on the phone and wants to talk to them about something Very Interesting, and Olivia finds herself absently agreeing to drag herself and her partner down to the morgue. After she hangs up she hears Huang still rambling on, this time about a suspect who is probably experiencing castration anxiety, and pictures him again in his imaginary muck-man outfit. It's enough to bring a small smile to her face.

"Who's that?" Elliot asks, and she hadn't been aware that he'd left the shrink's captive audience to return to their desks.

"Warner. Found something she wants us to see."

"'Kay." He shrugs on his jacket and looks at her expectantly. "Anything funny?"

It isn't until her face tightens into a scowl at his question that she realizes she had still been smiling. "Nothing," she answers.

He seems used to her moods now, and she thinks that he isn't half as affected by them as he should be. And why not? If life is a playground, he's chosen to take his heart and his glove and go home. Which shouldn't matter, she's glad he's got his identity as Devoted Family Man back, and she's used to playing by herself now anyhow. But being happy and becoming resigned are two different things; she's found that her scowl ensures her privacy, which in turn guarantees there will be no more mindfucks from her partner as he struts around the squadroom, wielding his newfound domestic bliss as a favorite subject for all new anecdotes. Sometimes she feels like she's in an episode of "The Twilight Zone," where she's had a dream that everything is different and just when she acclimates, she wakes up to find that not one fucking thing has changed.

She remembers the rush of adrenaline and affection she felt as she held his naked, squalling newborn son, and she loves all of his kids. But she will pull out her service weapon, she knows she will, if he tells her one more goddamned thing about this baby.

Her coat is on and she's walking towards the door before she realizes that he's not following. "Elliot?" And it sounds more hostile than she intended. The filter between her mind and her mouth has a tear, and she has yet to find the motivation to repair the hole.

There is a second before he responds, and when he finally turns around and walks toward her and the door, she's not sure but she could swear his lips are pursed in a way that makes her think of whiners and tight-asses. As he brushes past her she catches his eye, and the look she gets gives her a stinging feeling in her stomach. She'll remember this later tonight as she stares at the ceiling in her bed. She can remember a whole hell of a lot when it comes to her and Elliot.

The engine is running by the time she gets in the passenger's side of the sedan, and as she catches a glimpse of Elliot's profile she realizes that her chest is tight in a way that has nothing to do with the victim's unborn child, her mother or a butchered lullaby.

There are only so many ways to avoid having a conversation. Elliot has now ignored her attempts at two of them.

"You're great with kids," he offers tentatively, and she fights the urge to slug him.

"Yeah, I know."

Silence. The engine hums to life and she begins to let herself breathe again.

Then.

"Maybe you should start thinking about having kids, and anyway you want to do it I'll support you—"

She cannot cut him off fast enough, and the hurt look on his face only confirms her fear that Elliot believes he has fixed his own life and now considers himself happy enough to fix hers.

The drive is tense, but not because of him. The skin on her face feels like paper mache, like everything that's ever happened to her is written there in wrinkles and rips. The cold air he's turned on is not helping.

Elliot's cell phone rings while they're caught in traffic and she knows the caller is Kathy and that the subject is Eli by the way he tries to mute his voice, like she won't hear the recognizable paternal pride from a foot away if he only talks a little quieter.

"That's great," he is saying, and she wants him to put it on speakerphone so she can apologize to both of them for her lifestyle choices and tell them both to feel free to rub it in. Kathy with her soccer mom hair and four kids and a tan line on her left ring finger. Olivia saw that tan line when Kathy approached her about the divorce papers and thought, even this woman's melanin levels are connected to Elliot.

She likes Kathy, she does. At least, as much as she can reasonably be expected to like someone she doesn't know very well. She remembers Eli's birthday, the panic and the blood and this odd bond she'd ended up forging with Elliot's wife. So yeah, she likes her. But the thing of it is, Kathy always has something Olivia wants, and unless a freak accident takes out Elliot, their five kids, and any other family she has lurking around the area, chances are that Kathy will never be alone. Ever.

This thought first occurred to Olivia over Christmas, as she sat at her desk with Chinese take-out and pondered why she, the only child of an only child, should mind being alone during the holidays. She knows it is her life as it is, that she should be thankful for good health and good friends and be done with it, but as she shoved a mouthful of Chow Mein noodles into her mouth she pictured the Christmas festivities at the Stabler residence in realtime and felt a knot forming the pit of her stomach.

Kathy had invited her over for Christmas this year, and it took Olivia exactly 1.5 seconds to determine that there was no way in hell she would attend. She told Kathy she would try, but Elliot did not marry an idiot and Olivia almost flinched under the scrutiny of her gaze that said, Bullshit. But she was gracious enough when Olivia bowed out by citing work reasons, and after she hung up the phone Olivia thought, She's nice.

But the point of it is, there is one thing Olivia has always wanted, and as after-school special-y as it sounds, she has wished since childhood to have some sort of family. Elliot hated Marsden, and Olivia had to admit she's had over a dozen instances of wanting to cut off contact with him. But it's somebody.

"'Kay. That's fine." Pause. "I will. Bye."

Olivia has something snarky preparing to come out of her mouth – damn that filter! – something along the lines of, What, no 'I love you?' But Elliot turns to her like he's going to say something he doesn't want to say and she holds her tongue.

"Don't feel like you have to—" he begins, and she feels a certainty that if he brings up the kid thing again she will get out of this car and walk across the bridge to the precinct. But he continues, "I know you might not be in the mood, but… when all this is done, Kathy'd like to have you over for dinner with the family."

She feels her eyebrow climb. "She said that?"

"Yeah." Of course.

Neither of the Stablers deserve her animosity, but she finds it much easier to throw it at Elliot and not Mrs. Stabler 2.0, especially when Kathy is being nice. So she nods and looks out the window. "Sounds good," she answers, and she is the very picture of non-committal.


	2. Ab incunabilis

The Stabler residence is not all lit up like Olivia seems to remember it being in the days of yesteryear, and the house no longer holds an air of unpredictability that seems to accompany childhood. There are no rambunctious kids here running through the halls and yelling, just a baby and three young adults. Olivia misses all the noise and wonders if Elliot does, too.

Dinner is nice, and Olivia has officially assigned that word to Kathy. Nice. What a nice family, this tablecloth is nice, how nice of you to have me over, etc., etc. Kathy talks about missing her job and coming off maternity leave and Olivia struggles to pay attention. She'd rather hear what Dickie is whispering to Kathleen at the other side of the table. She hopes it isn't about her.

Kathleen is picked up by a friend after dinner and the twins disappear in a similar manner. Kathy invites her to stay for a glass of wine and Olivia hears herself accepting because, well, why the hell not? She's already here, and this is nice.

Elliot has been quiet all evening, speaking mostly to his children and only interjecting occasionally into Olivia's and Kathy's conversation. He is upstairs with the baby when Kathy mentions the wine and Olivia hopes he won't be disappointed that she's staying longer. She is as familiar with this family as she could ever hope to be with one of her own, but ever since Elliot moved back home she feels like an intruder trying to be a part of it.

Ten minutes later she and Elliot are each nursing a glass of wine while Kathy sips on apple juice and continues to engage Olivia in small talk. She is sitting with Elliot on the couch, leaning against him as he sips his wine. Kathy's earned this, more than earned this, the right to engage in physical contact with him whenever she wants. But Olivia is used to inwardly wincing when other people, especially other women, touch Elliot, and it's odd to fight the habit while watching him sit with his wife.

The sound of a baby causes Kathy's head to swivel towards the stairs automatically. "Did you give him the pacifier?" she asks Elliot.

He shakes his head. "I didn't see it up there and he went down fine without it."

"It's by the kitchen sink," she states. "He's not going back to sleep without it, I guarantee."

Olivia hears herself offering, "Stay there. I'll get it," before the part of her that's been single her entire adult life can tell her to sit her ass down.

"You don't have to—" Kathy offers, but Olivia is already up and ready to be in a room where Elliot is not quasi-cuddling with his wife. No one says anything further to object, but they're sitting there looking at her, Kathy with a smile (she's so nice) and Elliot with some weird, enigmatic look she'd rather not decipher, and she finally heads to the kitchen to grab the item in question before going upstairs.

*

Eli's cries grow louder as she gently pushes the door open, and she finds herself hoping it is just the pacifier he needs and not milk. She will feel woefully inadequate if she cannot, for just one fucking time, meet a child's needs all by herself. She'll feel foolish if she has to leave this crying boy to go get his mother.

She flips the switch on the Winnie the Pooh lamp by the gliding chair and moves over to the crib. She wishes she did not have to feel intimidated by this child and his expectations of her.

Olivia has seen the worst kinds of people do the worst kinds of things, and she considers herself something of a hard-ass, but she's still got estrogen coursing through her and so she doesn't even fight it when she looks at Eli's face and her heart cracks and softens. The baby is red with crying and there are tear tracks in miniature running down his face, and she runs a finger across his cheek as she gives him the pacifier.

He quiets immediately, sucking on the pacifier and steadily regarding her with dark hazel eyes. She has only seen him in person twice since he was born, and each time she was surprised that his eyes aren't blue. Elliot told her they would lighten with time, and she wonders which shade they'll eventually be.

Eli is still gazing at her, and she doesn't really want to go back downstairs when this little creature has found her worthy of his attention. Besides, she doesn't want to leave him in here awake and alone. Elliot might get mad at her for disturbing the bedtime routine, but she knows that if she doesn't leave the room in thirty seconds she is going to pick this baby up.

Her arms reach down into the crib and she thinks, Too late. Eli feels perfect, at the stage of babyhood where he is soft and sweet but still feels a little wiry. She wraps his blanket around his legs and sits down in the gliding chair. Elliot and Kathy can use the time alone to be comfortably married on their couch, anyway.

She inhales him and her senses are overwhelmed with the soft scent of Baby, baby shampoo and the fabric softener Kathy uses for her family. Eli snuggles against her arm and she melts.

An urge to pretend he is hers for a moment creeps into her mind and she shakes her head quickly, saying to herself, Unhealthy, unhealthy. But the movement jostles the baby and his eyes, which had been drifting closed, are wide open again.

She smiles at him apologetically. "Sorry," she says softly, and then feels foolish. But what does one say when addressing a six-week-old baby?

Eli is still staring at her expectantly, and there is only one tune in her head that would be appropriate to share with him. She tentatively, quietly hums a few notes, testing the room to see if anyone jumps out and laughs at her for singing to her partner's son.

After a moment of nothing but the sound of Eli working on his pacifier, she continues.

"Lean back, snuggle in my lap, Tonight let's take time to share… Quiet sounds and peaceful sights, Outside in the old rocking chair…"

She stops to gauge Eli's reaction. He is still looking at her face with a steady gaze, blinking only occasionally. She takes it as approval.

"We're rocking, we're rocking, We're rocking tonight. Rocking, we're rocking Beneath the moonlight.

Dusk covers the valley  
Stars slowly come into sight  
Birds chatter among the trees  
Before saying goodnight

Crickets sing a merry song  
The night breeze whispers a prayer  
Nature plays her lullaby  
Heard from the old rocking chair

Shadows dance across the porch  
Cast by the heaven's soft glare  
Rich designs of rustling leaves  
Surround the old rocking chair…"

Eli's eyes have been slowly sinking shut since the third verse, and she revels in the feeling of triumph that comes with knowing she has single-handedly soothed and rocked this child to sleep. Dryly, she marvels at the effectiveness of lullabies when they are performed without a blood alcohol content three times what the state says it should be.

She rocks Eli for several minutes before the door to the bedroom eases open. She can feel Elliot's eyes on her before she looks up.

"Hey," he says quietly. He smiles when he sees his son, but the effect is painful. She's not sure she wants to know what he's thinking. "Just making sure you're alright."

She does not want her voice to wake Eli, so she nods and begins to stand, making her movements fluid to avoid jarring the baby. She feels pressure now, in Elliot's presence, to not mess this up, and she feels another surge of triumph when Eli is deposited into his crib with nary a peep. She switches the lamp off and steps into the hallway.

Elliot's still smiling. "What'd I tell you?" He says lightly. "You're a pro."

She gives him a small smile in return and goes back downstairs.

*


	3. Concordia discors

Some things are better left unfelt.

It is almost midnight and she has not left her chair for almost five hours. There is a half-eaten Kudos bar by a styrofoam cup half-filled with cold tea, and she cannot find it in herself to shut the computer down and go home. It's one of those nights, she can feel it, when the world won't stay outside her door and her nerves feel like they've stretched past the outside of her body and wrapped themselves around a nearby live wire. When she gets like this she thinks that, if she tries hard enough, she can remember every single experience she's ever had, but she's only tried hard once and ended up being distracted by a car alarm going off on the street outside her apartment.

She's tried sleep before in this state, and experience has taught her that it never ends the way she wants it to. The world is always just a millisecond away from whispering things in her ear about the victims she's dealt with earlier in the day or the victims that are being made Right Now as she safely lies in her bed. The world can talk to her for so long that she eventually ends up either trying to read a book or gets up and goes to work a little early. Or a lot early.

Here, at her desk, the world can whisper all it wants. It's talking to her on her turf, on her terms, and she almost feels like she can win the fights those whispers seem to pick.

Elliot's desk is dark, and it's late and that's normal now, but it drives her crazy. It kills her to admit it, but at times like this she'd much rather have him glowering at her bitchiness from across the desk than to not see him at all. She knows this is probably unhealthy.

She's read and re-read the paragraph in front of her four times, and it's on the fifth she finds herself softly mouthing a familiar tune that's been swirling at the front of her brain all day.

"Dusk covers the valley…" she half-sings, half-whispers. She looks around immediately and feels foolish. Of course no one heard. "Stars slowly come into sight…"

Her voice is scratchy from not talking for several hours, but the sound of it is strangely comforting as it fills the space around her. She remembers more of the lullaby than she thought, and the half-whispered strains of it coming from her throat relax her. She tries not to think about emotionally abused children who learn to compensate for lack of affection by talking to themselves.

She is on the second verse the third time when she hears footsteps approaching and whips around in her chair, blushing furiously at being caught doing something as ridiculous as singing a lullaby. To herself. Alone.

Elliot gets closer to her and smiles and she thinks it is just her own fucked-up perception these days that makes her think it's derisive. It's not. It's kind.

"'Evening. What was that?" he asks, and she's instantly grateful and annoyed that he is choosing to ignore the mild unpleasantness that's been clinging to them like a fog lately.

"Nothing," she starts to say, can feel the word forming on her tongue, can see him preparing to respond to another act of unwarranted irritation.

She has a choice here, she knows that. She can answer him, ignore him, or change the subject by asking him what the hell he's doing here so late. If this had happened twelve hours earlier, she knows Options B or C would have picked themselves and caused another of what she has come to think of as Awkwardly Hostile Moments.

Fortunately for him, Option A finally grows a pair and jumps into the mix. "It's a lullaby," she says slowly.

He visibly relaxes at her civility and she wonders when she became this person, someone who surrounds herself with pins and needles. "Thought I knew all of those," he says with something between a smile and grimace as he turns his desklamp on and sits. "Never heard that one."

There is silence as he logs into his computer and her curiosity finally wins. "You're here late," she says pointedly.

He gives her a look, No shit, and turns back to her screen.

Okay, she'll bite. "What's going on?"

He shrugs. "Couldn't sleep. Kathy's at her mom's."

She knows, knows, it is petulant and catty of her to hope that the two statements are not related, that his insomnia is not the result of his wife's absence. The thought of him needing someone else for something as basic as sleep causes her chest to tighten. But she quickly dissects his sentence all the same before finally deciding to just leave it the hell alone.

"Liv?" His eyebrows are raised, which probably means he's waiting for an answer to something he's already asked. At her questioning look he repeats himself. "I said what about you?"

She shrugs. "Same. Thought I'd get some work done."

Minutes go by and the only sound is the rustle of her papers and the clack-clack-clacking of his henpeck typing technique. She's seen ads for an online typing course and thinks of him every damn time. Maybe for Christmas, she thinks.

Olivia is looking at the clock and it is 1:46 AM when he suddenly breaks the silence. The sound of his voice startles her.

"What's the name of that song?" he asks nonchalantly.

She tries not to look confused for three seconds while her tired brain assimilates the context of his question. "The lullaby?" He nods. "Oh. It's, um, 'Old Rocking Chair.'"

Her voice wavered ever so slightly and she chalks it up to fatigue and not the horrible bittersweet nature of her attachment to that damned children's song.

"How's it go?" he is asking, and it is almost enough to make her smile again, but this is Elliot and she's been dispensing her smiles sparingly to him lately.

"It's late, Elliot. But not that late," she says dryly. "Besides, I don't sing lullabies to grown men."

He smirks, and she fleetingly thinks back to Elliot of four years earlier. She feels the thought enter her brain, This feels good. But then the years come back and she finds herself looking at a man who is her partner and best friend and who would willingly protect her with his life, and all she can think of is how hard it's going to be to get used to having only a part of Elliot Stabler.


	4. Beati pacifici

Some things are better left to movie stars.

It is one of Those Days, the kind where Olivia can actually picture herself unwinding in a hot bubble bath with a glass of wine. She's seen people do it in the movies, and always thinks, That looks nice. But she just knows that when she finally balls up enough to crack open the Bubble Bath she bought two months ago, her phone will ring and Elliot or Cragen will be there with the rest of the world, banging down her door.

Elliot has been in a foul mood all day, and she understands, of course she does. It's a shit case with shit leads and all of their scrambling through the seamy underworld of New York tends to take the pep out of their step. Fortunately for both of them, she is too tired to fight him right now, and takes a perverse pleasure in being his punching bag for the day.

She is at her desk, looking for a file, when she spots it under the one Elliot is currently reading. He hunched over his desk, staring at the paper, hard, like he can will the words to jump into his brain and give him a hint as to what the fuck is going on with their case. He isn't blinking.

She clears her throat. "Can you hand me the file on Gibson?"

Nothing.

"Elliot?"

This time, louder. "Elliot?"

The snap of his head makes her jump, and she later remembers thinking, Oh shit. He's finally lost it. But he doesn't lose it, doesn't jump up from his seat and start throwing desks out of windows and breaking the spines of the people who happen to be in his way. Instead, he just glares at her. Glares at her. And hard-ass she may be, but she flinches at the sheer mean-ness of it.

"What."

Not a question. "The file—" she begins.

"Fuck!" The obscenity escapes from his mouth in a harsh bark, and the palm of his hand makes a loud smack! on his desk before he stalks away.

Munch and Fin are captivated, looking at her for an explanation. She will not, will NOT, acknowledge the blame in Munch's eyes that is directed at her.

"The case. It's getting to him." And they shrug and look away.

She's begun to think of her choices and what will result from them in a way that would make Robert Frost proud. The choice before her now is to A) assume the mantle of concerned and dedicated partner, find him and let him know she's there for him, whatever he needs. He may lean on her shoulder for support, but he will probably just bite her head off and tell her to leave him the hell alone. The last time she'd sought him out, he'd been on the phone with Kathy. Which made the second option look a whole lot more appealing: B) Treat him like a big boy and let him deal with it.

After several moments of deliberating, Elliot returns to his desk, picks up the file, and extends it to her. She meets his eyes before taking it, but she can still see that his hand is shaking. "Thanks," she offers quietly.

The rest of their day passes in silence. Fuck it, she thinks. The bubble bath is on.

*

She is in her bath, listening to an NPR podcast and some fiction author is blathering on about love. Every life is a love story of some kind, he opines. You determine what kind of love story. You choose. You choose.

Olivia is feeling darkly humorous and fights the urge to make a sarcastic remark. Tonight, her love story involves this bullshit podcast, a glass of cheap cabernet and the bubble bath that had been uncomfortably hot at first, but has now settled to a lukewarm room temperature. She stares at her toes peeking out of the water and lets her mind wander.

She has lived several different lives in her relationship with Elliot, and there have been times when she's wanted him. In her bed, in her body, in her heart. But the woman who used to let her mind dwell on those things seems so naïve in the present, and she's long since chosen to stop going down that road. It saddens her, but her reaction to Elliot, to his presence, seems like a habit now. She hasn't touched herself in what seems like forever, and the last time she had tried, the thought of Elliot moving over her, moving inside her wasn't enough. She'd had to whip out some random fantasy of an actor she'd seen on posters promoting his television show; one underwhelming orgasm later, she'd rolled over and slept and dreamed of Elliot, her friend. And she woke up feeling dirty.

And then there was the sister. For a time she made herself think of Elliot as her brother – a big, overprotective, older brother. And that was comfortable. But it fucked with her mind to have sudden flashes of wanting for a big brother. So she tucked that one away as well.

So now Elliot resides in a no-man's-land in her head, a big fat grey area between friend and partner and something weird. Sometimes, just for kicks, she imagines him sitting in an easy chair, trying to categorize their relationship, scowling at the intricacy of it all. Beer in hand. Grey sweatpants. Chinese take-out sitting on the coffee table.

Okay, now her mind is really wandering, and she realizes there is a small smile on her face.

She thinks of Eli, what he is, what he'll be, what he represents. New beginnings for Elliot and Kathy. New person, new energy, new potential. Another kid for Elliot to whine about putting through school. Another Stabler.

The wine allows her thoughts to wax maudlin. If she had a kid – and she's not completely sure of this, but she thinks about it anyway – she can't imagine whining about what it would entail. She's sure the humdrum of it all would eventually take the novelty of motherhood away, but she can't imagine not loving, for one single minute, the person who would make her Not Alone. Forget the shit about parenting and eternal love and dedication and sacrifice – she'd actually be getting something tangible out of it. Another person to use the bathtub. Someone to cook for. Someone to be needed by. Someone to be in her love story.

From somewhere in her subconscious, a picture of her mother rises to the surface. Serena Benson, tragic and beautiful, stuck on the bottle and tired of life. Serena, who looked on Olivia as the savior she was burdened to raise.

Olivia can remember the one and only time as a teenager she had attempted to sneak out of the house. Dressed in clothing that was appropriate only within the context of the era, she'd crept through the hallway past her mother's door, carefully avoiding the spots on the hardwood floor that would creak. She'd felt invisible, stealthy, like a cat burglar, and she'd made it almost to the door when the sound came from the living room.

Libby?

Her last thought before she dozes in her bubble bath is that she has never felt so utterly alone.

*

Her first thought upon waking is, Fuck, I'm cold.

Her second is, Fuck, I smell smoke.

Her body jerks awake and she is fully alert, and it is only that cognizance which keeps her from sitting up out of the water as she realizes that Elliot is in her bathroom, still dressed from work and blowing out the last of the candles she had carefully selected to help her unwind.

"The fuck?" she demands, and slinks beneath the water in an attempt to cover herself. The bubbles are all but dissolved now, and she positions her limbs in such a way that will preserve her modesty as best she can.

Elliot, the poor bastard, is out of his element and looking everywhere but her as he tries to hand her the robe that was hanging on the door. "Sorry." Fumble, fumble. "… Here. I called and knocked, you didn't answer, I got worried… here!" And he urgently holds out her robe and looks the other way. As soon as she snatches it from his hands, he is out of the bathroom like it was on fire.

She dresses quickly, driven by a desire to know what the hell Elliot Stabler is thinking, using his emergency key to barge in, blow out candles and peep in on her bubble bath. She stalks into the living room to find him sitting on the sofa, his head tilted onto the back of the couch. His hands are on his knees, and he is flexing and relaxing his fingers. He is nervous.

"I'm dressed. You can look at me now." Clearly, her partner has not had the benefit of a hot bubble bath and two glasses of cheap wine.

He looks at her, then, and it is so different from the glare she received earlier. It's needy, and she files it away with the thirteen thousand other Looks She Gets From Elliot.

When he finally speaks, his words are halting, and she imagines him practicing them in the hallway outside her door before deciding to fuck it all and just go in. "I need to talk to you." He says in a low voice. "I need to talk to someone. But… I need it to be you."

Elliot Stabler is talking without being compelled by a court order or Huang's well-meant persuasion, and this is new for her, so she warily approaches the chair beside the couch and sits down. There is one lamp on in her living room, and the shadows throw the craggy lines of his face into sharp relief. He is a statue now, and it's her move.

"What do you want to talk about?" she asks slowly.

The statue opens his mouth and then closes it, like a fish gasping at the air. He does not know how to say what he wants to say, and she realizes this. But she's not a whiz with words either, and the grey area he occupies in her life makes it hard for her to want to help him.

"I…" he starts. "I…"

Silence. He collects himself.

"It's this case," he finally begins. "It's this fucking case, that's why I'm here. Kathy can't talk about it."

Kathy can't talk about it? She thinks. She remembers something in the divorce about Elliot not communicating enough with his wife, and how that was something of a deal-breaker. But that was before the baby. Maybe new moms can't handle the mental images of grown men running a black market brothel of girls under the age of eight, she thinks snidely, and then rebukes herself. What a great way to judge other women – find out how much of the world's shit they can live with in their heads.

"You know… you know what's going on right now and…" He looks at her now, his eyes almost pleading, defiant in their need. "I can't talk to her about this, and I can't hold my son without it, without this shit, in my head, and I need it… I need it out of my head."

Translation: You're already fucked up. Can I vomit this case onto you?

Olivia is silent. This is a new type of shot he is firing across the trenches, an untried thing. Talking. They are partners, and they are friends in that they are comfortable with each other and care deeply about the other's existence but… they are not wordy people. And she has been okay. Hasn't she?

She remembers, again, that night as a teenager. She had been so close to the door, was almost touching the knob...

"Libby?"

She froze.

"Olivia?"

Turning around, she saw her mother pushing herself up and off the couch. Olivia had been able to smell the sting of alcohol from the foyer and sighed. Disappointment? Disappointment was when you had expectations that weren't met. And this... this was so, so expected.

Serena made her way across the living room and into the foyer, with the practiced slow, searching steps of a seasoned drinker. She was still wearing her shoes. Her mother, whom Olivia had assumed was in bed, had only recently returned from Some Bar that her daughter had long since stopped being curious about.

Serena's breath wafted across Olivia's face as those slender iron fingers closed around her arms. Vices like feathers. "Where're you going?" she asked.

"Nowhere. I'm... I need to get something out of my car."

And to this day she remembers the way her mother's fingers tightened as her eyes narrowed in anger. And then just as quickly began to well up with tears.

Her mother's hand runs to Olivia's face, clumsily caressing her cheek and hair. Resting on her neck as her mother tightens her grip. "You're leaving... Libby don't leave me."

"Mom--"

"Don't leave me alone... you're too young to be out. And I'm-- this can't. I'm so tired. Libby don't leave me. Don't leave me alone..."

And fuck it all, if she hadn't poured her mom into bed before returning to her own room to stare at the ceiling. Some rebellion, she'd thought. And, though she could hear Serena's breathing through the two open bedroom doors, she was alone.

And now Elliot is alone. And the way he is staring at her right now, she just cannot stand it. Elliot Stabler should not beg, it just goes against something fundamental in the universe, and she hates that he looks so broken. As she stands up, she watches his face, sees it readying to absorb some weird, fucked-up rejection he thinks she'll throw at him. She speaks quickly.

"Coffee?"

His face relaxes slightly, and he nods. And, into the awkward silence, Elliot Stabler begins to talk.  
*


	5. Dulcius ex asperis

Some things are better left untried.

At least, that's the tired part of her brain talking. She's glad, really she is, that her lack of sleep is due to interaction with a living, breathing person, and not the phantoms she normally spends the night with, after they dredge themselves up from her mind as soon as her head hits the pillow. Elliot had talked, and she had listened. It was extraordinarily human.

The night before, as she'd listened to him, she'd remembered Eli and her mother and, unbidden, the last verse of a lullaby that she'd never been able to hear from Serena's lips.

Wood weathered by years of use  
Seat tattered and worn with wear  
But lean back in those aging arms  
And no place can compare  
Yes lean back in those aging arms  
And no place can compare

But then Elliot had said the word 'retirement,' just casually, but it still snapped her right back to the conversation with a small burst of panic. Cops like you don't retire, she'd thought. They die in uniform, one way or another. She'd shivered.

She walks into the squadroom and is relieved to see that her partner has not yet arrived. She will make this awkward, she knows she will, and part of her hates him for the time he chose to spend with her. She is now a repository for information Elliot has imparted to her – nothing earth-shattering, of course; after all, this was Elliot. She should have guessed that when he wanted to talk it would not entail any braiding of hair or painting of toe nails. But the intimacy, the friendship of it and what it means in light of recent events is causing a damned warm, glow-y feeling somewhere in her abdominal region.

As her computer warms up, she remembers his voice and his face and the mood it created in her living room. There had been no melodrama, no tortured confessions or tears or any of that shit that happens in the movies. He had simply talked, talked about the case and why it was harder than most, how he was getting older and what he wanted for Eli. And then he'd looked at his watch, apologized, thanked her for the coffee, and left.

She thinks that a truce has been called on the confusion in their friendship. His choice to talk to her, to show up and barge in and talk to her, has been oddly affirming. For whatever reason, he'd chosen her for something that had nothing to do with having his back or splitting the workload.

She's not sure what to do with this.

Her computer is up and running, but her brain has frozen on that one thought, and she is dwelling on her own dumbfoundedness when Elliot arrives. He strides in, somehow managing to at once look tired and well-rested, and she can feel her shoulders reflexively tense as he gets closer. Do not make this awkward, she begs him silently. Just come in and shut up.

He gives her a small smile as he removes his coat and jacket. "Sleep well?" he asks politely.

"Like a rock," she answers. "You?"

He shrugs as he sits. Squeak, squeak. He needs a new chair. "Like a rock."

Then there is silence, and after a moment she realizes that they are staring across the desks at each other, assessing, testing the waters. She's not one of those New Age aura freaks, but she imagines graceful, finger-like extensions of herself reaching across the desks and grasping onto something of Elliot. A new bond is forming, and she feels her shoulders begin to relax slightly. Stop looking bitchy, she tells herself. This is Elliot. You know him.

Hello, she thinks across the desk. It's good to be back.

Still meeting her gaze, he smiles tightly again; this time, she returns it.

*

"The mice are, of course, well-treated," explains Dr. Nordstrach as he replaces the water bottle on the rodent cage. "And they have all they need to survive."

Elliot is bored. "So what's the point of all this, then?" he asks, gesturing to the individual mouse cages.

"We're testing community bonds," Nordstrach answers. "How social they are, the amount of company they need to be healthy."

"They're mice," Elliot mutters.

"They're animals," counters Nordstrach. "And therefore in need of everything you or I would require, albeit on a more basic level, of course."

They are conducting interviews to see if their suspect's alibi is a wash, and it is one of Those Days in a good way. Olivia rarely feels hopefuly about life in general, but she'd begun today in an obnoxiously content mood, and so far the universe was allowing it.

She and Elliot had disagreed over the case this morning, but the argument had lacked its usual venom. Instead, he was calm and she was calm, and she found herself thinking of adult words for not seeing eye-to-eye. Discourse. Debate. Civil disagreement.

In the background of her mind, she hears Elliot offer another Queens College, bad-ass cop perspective on the workings of science and experimentation as she studies her surroundings. There is one mouse in one of the cages, lapping at the tip of its tiny water bottle. From what she can tell, it has a choice of shitting, eating, sleeping, or running on the wheel. She grimaces; although Penelope has been a thing of the past for awhile, her voice occasionally creeps into Olivia's head whenever she sees anything remotely objectifying animals. She fights an irrational urge to sweep all of the cages to the floor and yell at the mice to make a break for it. She cannot imagine what Elliot would do, but the look he would undoubtedly have on his face would probably be worth it. Given that he'd just devoured a burger with an ungodly amount of meat in it, she can't imagine he would be sympathetic. But then again, everything's been turned on its ass in the last week, so she won't assume.

Her lack of attention must not have been as subtle as she would have liked; Elliot fills her in as they walk to the car. "Doc says Shane was with him all day, didn't take a lunch and wasn't ever out of his sight for more than a few—shit." He pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks the screen, and is it just her imagination or does his brow furrow slightly? She is more than prepared to give him some room to take the call, but the phone is going back into his pocket and he continues briefing her on his conversation with Nordstrach.

You choose, you choose, she thinks in an NPR voice. I choose not to read into this. It probably wasn't even't Kathy. I choose, I choose.

"Liv?"

He is looking at her expectantly, all business and waiting for a professional opinion from her mouth, from her mind which is not at all dwelling on what their prime suspect's new alibi will do to their case. She is instantly ashamed of her inattention.

I choose, she affirms to herself. I choose not to analyze his every move like an eighth grade girl. I choose to be an adult. I choose to be his friend. I choose to be the person who can let him into her apartment late at night for conversation and then send him home to his wife with nary a second thought. I choose.

Elliot seems to understand that she needs to be inside her own head today. The ride back to the precinct is silent.

*

Last February, Olivia received a box package from Simon with a jauntily colored Christmas card inside that said, "I hope we'll use this to make some new family memories." And beneath the card was a new digital camera.

At the time, she'd considered sending it back and demurring as tactfully as possible. All she'd sent him for Christmas was a card and a short letter; it seemed ridiculous for him to spend his money on a camera for a half-relative who hated taking pictures, anyway – even if it was two months late.

Ten months later and there are only three pictures on the camera, all of them taken by Munch after he spotted the Canon in her desk drawer.

"Anything on here I shouldn't see?" he asked dryly as he plucked it out of her desk.

"Nothing I'd care to explain," she retorted.

Munch smirked and took his new toy back to his desk. Olivia was grateful he hadn't remarked on the lack of images.

Sometimes, when she's working late, she takes the camera out and views those three pictures. The battery is on the fritz, she really needs to charge it more, so she doesn't ever take long, but knowing the images are there is oddly comforting to her.

The first is of Fin, looking up from his paperwork to glower at the photographer. She remembers working at her desk and hearing Munch cajole him to look, before the flash went off in her peripheral and Fin muttered, "That damn thing better not show up on the internet."

The second is of Lake and Elliot, their backs to the camera, studying the board. Both men's hands are planted on their hips, their necks craned to look up at crime scene photos. Olivia looks at this picture and thinks that Lake – young, handsome, eager Lake – looks green next to her partner. His posture is tight, ready, sure. Elliot's shoulders, by contrast, are slightly slumped and relaxed. The picture of a cop who knows the job inside and out and doesn't have to impress anyone.

The third is of her and Elliot.

It's odd to think that, after so many years together, this is the first time anyone's taken a picture of just the two of them, just for the hell of it. She'd been sipping her tea, studying a photograph and battling the beginnings of a migraine as Elliot filled her in on his interview with the victim, when Munch conspicuously cleared his throat. She'd looked at him just as the flash went off.

"Nice," Munch smirked. "Wanna see?"

"No. Put my camera down." And he did.

She'd never admit to it – in fact, if for some strange reason Elliot ever asks about it, she'll consider saying she deleted it – but she likes that picture, likes it more than any posed department photo or smiling snapshot.

It isn't a flattering photo. She is still holding her tea, guardedly glancing at the camera at Munch's obnoxious prompting. She looks bothered and pissy, her lips pursed in disapproval. Her wrist, as it supports the hand holding her mug, looks frail. I look old, she thinks when she looks at it.

But the reason she treasures the picture is Elliot, and the way he is looking at her (he is looking at her, after all, and not at the photographer. Smart man, she thinks.) makes her feel like something special. He's not gazing at her with barely-contained desire. He's not glaring at her with frustration. He's just looking, resting his eyes on her. Like he's more comfortable with looking at her than he is with blinking. It's a look of fondness, of companionship. It's the look spouses give each other after decades of marriage. The look of old friends. That look is sacred to her.

They'd bickered only moments after the picture was taken, of course; familiarity does have its downfalls. But this picture, that look, is sometimes the only thing that reminds her that she is still a rightful part of his life. That he doesn't mind her being there.

Lately that hasn't been the only reminder. She and Elliot have had two full-fledged, adult conversations, dialoguing about everything and nothing at once. His presence is comfortable to her, like grilled cheese and thermal socks and down comforters, and she sometimes feels like she's blossoming under his attention. She'll be damned if she ever admits that.

He has only come to her apartment once – the awkwardness of their first talk thankfully has not been repeated; she cannot imagine the jumpiness of living her nights, waiting for him to knock on the door and ask for coffee and company.

The second takes place a week after the first during lunch in a greasy spoon diner that Elliot loves and Olivia hates. It is a comfortable conversation, he begins talking about high school and sports and his first car as she divides her attention between him and the grease she swears she can see pooling at the top of her vegetable soup. Twenty minutes later they receive a call, Elliot mutters something about sons of bitches who spend too much time around school playgrounds, throws some bills down on the table and they are cops again.

*

The third time occurs eleven days after the second (she's not counting), after a slow day at work. It is half past five and they are shrugging their jackets on at the same time when Olivia remembers the pitiful state of her camera battery. She takes the Canon out of its drawer and tucks it into her jacket.

"New camera?" Elliot asks.

"Sort of," she shrugs. "You haven't seen it yet?"

He shakes his head. "Should I have?"

She shrugs again, reveling in the fact that shrugging is not as painful when the muscles in your back aren't welded to each other in sheer frustration. "Munch was using it… you don't remember."

"Getting old," he admits.

She groans as she mashes the elevator down button. "Don't talk age to me. Men have it so easy."

He smirks. "Don't tell me you're feeling the effects of middle-age already? You're, what, forty-one? Come find me in five years."

What will five years be like? She cannot imagine a different world than the one she now inhabits, the one with him at the desk across from her everyday. But five years brings many changes.

"So… five years. Where do you think we'll be?" And her tone is casual, like she'll be okay no matter what happens.

His smile seems strained. "Sending a kid off to first grade for the last time, I hope," he says, with such obvious melancholy that she laughs.

Twenty-five minutes and another conversation later, she and Elliot part ways in front of the precinct. She hails a cab and heads home, and it isn't until she climbs the front steps to her building that she realizes she is still smiling.


	6. Fallaces sunt rerum

The other shoe has got to drop.

It has been two weeks since she woke up to Elliot blowing out her bathroom candles, and the two of them are like a fucking postcard for open communication and togetherness. Any disagreements over their cases are resolved quickly and painlessly – she hasn't even had time to let anything fester, because if anything bothers her, there Elliot is, being there and being kind and smoothing it all over. "C'mon, Liv," he says. "We'll figure it out."

It's weird.

Not that she's complaining, really. This is a major improvement over various patches of their partnership when she'd doubted that he remembered her name. This is much better. Really.

And it isn't like he is all of a sudden Not Elliot - he still has his moments. Several times she's caught him glaring into the distance at nothing, like the space twenty yards away has really and truly fucked up his life. And that makes things seem normal.

But she still can't help but feel like something's got to give. All these months she's spent sitting at her desk, glaring at him while he's not looking, when he won't look, resenting the fact that he has people to bring color his existence and she doesn't… is all of that just over now?

She responds to him and his new Olivia Benson & Elliot Stabler's Buddies For Life Program because, hey, she'd have to be an uber-bitch not to. He's still Elliot and they're still partners; especially now when there seems to be a legitimate friendship that is growing right under her nose. And this is what she wanted, right?

Olivia reviews the history of her thought processes involving her partner like a scientist going back over the drawing board, noting wrong turns and right choices and how they all combine and meld to form a working theory.

First: she was and is attracted to Elliot. That's just a fact, and hell yes she's tried to not be, but what can she do? In this case, she has decided to let it go. Ignore it. Focus on the work.

Second: this worked on and off for… awhile. Exactly when it stopped working altogether, she has no fucking clue. What she does know is that one day he wasn't married anymore and she was sad, so sad for him and what his divorce meant. And then she started thinking about things she had no business thinking about and the sadness felt contrived, and also strange, since it was tinged with a strange kind of horny-ness. And then she and Elliot got separated in a warehouse and Gitano found him before they found Gitano and everything just got shot all to fuck. Metaphorically, that is.

Third: She was Elliot's family when Elliot's family wasn't there anymore. And this is one reason the whole, Hey Liv, I'm going back to my wife, okay? shit didn't sit too well with her, yeah, she can admit it. It had seemed so black-and-white at the time – he chooses his wife and not Olivia, it all just reeked of rejection.

So, Fourth: Olivia decided to hate him. Not overtly, not in a way that would compromise their work. But just enough to keep her angry. How dare he, she would think sometimes as he worked at his desk, oblivious. How dare he?

But Fifth: Elliot has apparently decided that all of these things are water under the bridge. He's home, Eli's there, Kathy's a great mom and probably a great cook and what the hell, since women seem to be able to have it all, she's probably a hellcat in the sack. So life is good, and sure it could be better if Olivia would lighten up. And so he has become her friend.

She hates that she loves it. She hates that the minimal effort he has made to treat her like a human being who matters to him, even without a badge, has made her happier than she has been in awhile. She wishes she were more high-maintenance, not so easily placated. She wishes she could look at Elliot and know that she could take him or leave him, depending on how he played by her rules. She wishes she were in control of this. She wishes that there wasn't an expiration date on Elliot Stabler's platonic devotion.

Because the hell of it all is, a day will come – she knows it – when Eli will say his first word, or Maureen will get married, or Olivia herself will just fuck it up and lose whatever charm she still has, and Elliot will go home for good and stay there. She will not handle that day very well.

But here she is, sitting at her desk and realizing that, whether he realizes it or not, he is calling the shots here. And while his friendship is becoming more and more valuable, she finds it impossible not to hate him, just the tiniest bit, for rendering her powerless. For the first time since Philadelphia, she feels vulnerable. All because he couldn't handle one fucking case without talking.

The clicking sound of his keyboard ceases as Elliot checks his watch. He stretches his arms and yawns before smirking at her. "Ready for lunch?"

No, she thinks. And she nods.

*  
That night, she is making tea in her apartment with Project Runway in the background and she catches herself grinning as she remembers one of Elliot's Maureen-as-a-toddler stories.

Shit.

*


	7. Ubi fumus ibi ignis

Elliot is doing that thing again, the thing where he thinks of something that pisses him off and he won't share. She can tell by the way he is gripping the steering wheel like he wants it to ooze through the cracks in his fingers.

"Penny for your thoughts," she asks, because they are friends now and friends say shit like that.

He shakes his head briefly, once, and he's still annoyed. "Not worth that much," he says. And he's back in his head.

And this is how it is. They are close and then they are needing their own space. They are together and then they're not. Ten years ago she would have labeled this an emotional fuckfest.

But they're closer. That's something.

*

No matter how close she gets to Elliot, she will never tell him that she sometimes sits at her desk at home and re-reads the letter she'd received several months before. She lets the words hit her again, and sometimes she traces her finger over the Children's Welfare League of America letterhead. Thank you for your interest, the letter says. However…

However.

Tonight she looks around her apartment and tries to imagine it being inhabited by a baby, but all she can think about is Nordstrach's fucking mice and how she could easily fit a top-of-the-line exercise wheel on that wall behind her couch. Eat, shit, sleep, exercise. They had all they needed to survive, and so does she.

It is as she pictures herself drinking water out of a giant spigot protruding for a corner of her apartment that she hauls herself off to bed and thinks, Maybe it's time to start dating again.

*

The shoe has not dropped; it is inching closer to the ground, though, and he thinks she doesn't notice.

If the first couple of weeks of their burgeoning camaraderie were comparable to a honeymoon, then the last two days are what happens before someone suggests counseling. He has graduated from glaring into the distance to glaring at whoever interrupts his glaring, with the occasional glaring at Olivia when he thinks she isn't looking. But he still talks to her sometimes, and that's what she trusts.

Right now he is tense, and it could be the case, but they've had much worse. Cragen has been up their asses again, but that happens more and more now that they've done their time in career purgatory after what happened with Simon, so, no dice. Life in the bullpen maintains the status quo.

She could probably get away with asking him what's wrong, but his recent moodiness means she's not really sure how that conversation would go, and she hates, _hates_ surprises.

His phone shrills for what seems like the twentieth time this morning, and he snatches it up on the first ring. "Stabler," he says, and it does not sound friendly. "Yep. 'Kay. Thanks." And he is done.

"Labs back?"

He is scowling as he looks at her and shakes his head. "Nope."

Okay, then.

She turns to her computer and resumes working with a diligence that would make Cragen proud. It's just a thing, she's sure of it, it isn't her. And even if it is her, why the fuck should she care? She's managed to make it this long without withering under his moods. He's an adult. He can use his words, and anyway, it's not like they never talk.

His phone rings again, and he doesn't even reach for it. Two rings, and he is up from his chair and walking away.

"Elliot?" she calls after him.

"Bathroom," he throws over his shoulder.

OKAY, then.

She picks up the phone on the fifth ring. "Benson."

Pause. "Olivia?"

"Yes—Kathy?"

"Yeah." She does not sound happy. "Where's Elliot?"

"Um, he…stepped out for a moment," she says gracelessly. "He should be… he'll be back in a second. Can I have him call you?"

There is nothing but the sound of Kathy's soft breathing on the line, and Olivia pictures her standing in her kitchen holding a breast pump with narrowed eyes. "He's sitting right there, isn't he?"

What? "No, Kathy, he's in the bathroom. I'll have him call you."

She can practically taste the skepticism as it seeps through the line. "Sure. Fine. Thanks."

Silence.

Conflict is nothing new in her line of work and Olivia can handle herself but, really, this is Kathy and it's awkward. "Can I… is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No. Thank you." And then there is a click.

Several seconds pass before she realizes she is still holding the receiver to her ear thinking, What the fuck?

And then Elliot is back, settling in to resume his hen-peck typing method, the kind that makes her want to buy him an online typing tutorial. Maybe for Christmas, she thinks.

"Kathy called."

He grunts in acknowledgement and continues hunting for each key with the precision of a sniper. Really, he should have the QWERTY thing down for his left hand, at least. And his right hand should be reaching for the phone to call back the disgruntled mother of his children. Olivia would rather sharpen a pencil with her own teeth than side with Kathy on just about anything, but there is an order to the world and Elliot is fucking it over with each passing second he does not fix whatever is happening at home.

"Just out of curiousity," she begins, and boy does that get his attention. He peers up through his eyebrows at her and continues searching for what she can only assume is the letter X. What kind of sex crimes detective can't find the letter X? "Since when do you leave me to field your calls?"

"Call of nature," he muttered.

"Bullshit. You can run an eight-hour stakeout and hold it." And really, now they both know that she knows too much about him.

He glares at her. "Leave it alone."

But she's a fucking good detective, and she's gotten too close to let him throw up another smokescreen. "Wait a—you _knew_ that was Kathy."

He ignores her, and that's all she needs.

"Was that her on the phone earlier? When we were waiting to hear from Warner?"

"Liv…" And it's a warning. He is looking at her and she equally receives the pleading vibes and the ones that scream "Fuck Off!" shooting out of his eyeballs.

The phone rings and she doesn't jump, but her eyelids flicker in surprise and she is instantly furious with herself for being caught offguard by any of this.

By the time he finally answers his phone, Olivia has come to the conclusion that sticking around today is just not worth it. She heads to the vending machine and prays he can wrap up his conversation in the time it takes for her to decide on which pack of crackers she'll drop six quarters for. She picks B5 out of habit and returns to her desk to find him massaging the bridge of his nose. He looks beaten, and he is her friend.

"Cracker?" she offers. He shakes his head. "Everything alright?"

He shrugs, and what the hell does that even mean?

"El—"

He does not glare at her, but it's close enough and she could really do without the shitty attitude. "Do you really want to know?" he asks, and his voice is not gentle. "Or are you just being polite?"

Well fuck this, then.

The crackers are no longer appealing and she tosses the pack aside. "I'm not running interference for you again." His eyebrows raise, but he says nothing.

At exactly five o'clock, she shuts down her computer, grabs her jacket, and goes home. Munch throws a "'Night, Liv," at her back and she throws her hand up in a half-assed wave without turning around. Elliot is still pecking away.

It is too bright outside the precinct for her liking, and as she gets into her car she cannot help thinking about how much she needs a fucking vacation.

*

Some things are better left in the past.

Serena Benson loved Tennyson. One of the few untainted memories Olivia has of her mother is of her reading his poetry out loud, her throaty voice caressing each syllable and riding the intonation of the verse.

Sunset and evening star,  
And one clear call for me!  
And may there be no moaning of the bar,  
When I put out to sea…

"Crossing the Bar" was a favorite; Olivia had requested for it to be read at her mother's funeral and had tried not to think of how she had fumbled the recitation of it in her second grade talent show.

"If you're going to recite Tennyson, you need to practice more," her mother had told her matter-of-factly on the drive home. "Otherwise, you look like an idiot for trying."

And so the next year she had tried again, had practiced until she probably could have listed her talent as saying the poem backwards. She was nervous and excited, and her delivery had been near-perfect, but Serena Benson was nowhere to be found; Olivia had ended up sleeping over at Sherri Foster's house and had had to borrow clothes for school the next day.

"Your poem was perfect!" Mrs. Foster had enthused, but Olivia had long since learned that praise wasn't worth much unless it came with at least a little bit of pain to make it sweeter.

She now knows that this is unhealthy.

Mrs. Foster didn't even know what iambic pentameter was, and therefore was unable to realize how Olivia had almost stumbled through the first two lines. Her mother was a drunk, and she never sent cupcakes for the class like Mrs. Foster did, but at least she was well-read.

Sometimes it amuses her that her best friend is a cop from Queens who, she's pretty sure, would read a stanza of "Tithonus" and pronounce the author Full of Crap. Sometimes she wonders what her mother would think of his taste in literature – the Sports section would, undoubtedly, not be met with Serena Benson's approval, so yeah, sometimes Olivia is amused.

It is Friday, and Elliot's desk is unoccupied, of course, and why wouldn't it be? It's six in the morning. She hopes he'll find his happy place now and whenever the hell he comes in, because another day of this enigmatic cranky shit and she knows they'll be right back to where they were before.

She'd made a joke to Casey the other day about dying alone and it didn't even get a hint of a laugh, which is okay, she knows she isn't that funny. But even a courtesy smile would have been better than Casey's mild revulsion. "Shit, Olivia," she'd said. "That's really morbid."

Olivia hadn't been sure how to answer, and did her best to shrug it off. Morbid. Alone. She gets an unsettling mental picture of her as an old woman, complete with a walker, glasses, dentures and an empty holster where her gun used to be. Hobbling around the sidewalk outside the precinct, trying to crack a case from a bus stop. Searching faces for hints of lechery and perversion. Terrifying children by cornering them on the subway to make sure they hear from her How To Avoid Being Victimized By Sexual Predators and, on a side note, What Not To Do With Your Life. Hey kiddies, she'll say in a croaky old voice, Don't talk to strangers. And don't go off anywhere alone. Always tell your parents where you'll be and, oh, don't ever piss away your thirties by developing an emotional attachment to an unavailable man.

She should probably get a cat.

*

By nine o'clock she discovers that Elliot is taking a personal day and she finds herself not minding, even though the morning drags by at a pace that makes her feel like she's running through a giant vat of pudding. Munch makes a joke about something that no one thinks is funny and she can't think fast enough to respond to it, so she has to sit there while Fin takes him down a peg or two. Elliot's phone rings exactly two times, and she lets it.

Casey calls her as she's wolfing down a salad at her desk.

"Feel like not acting your age tonight?" she says by way of greeting.

Shit. "Casey, no," she protests. "I'm not going to a club."

"Not a club. A bar. You won't get a headache this time, no loud music, I promise. Just try it." At Olivia's sigh, she presses on. "When was the last time you got laid, Liv?"

Two minutes later, Olivia has made plans for a night on the weekend. It's almost like she's in college again, except she's pretty sure the level of dread she is experiencing about tonight is something relatively new.

Sometimes she feels so fucking old.

Her reverie is interrupted by Munch clearing her throat, and she catches him observing her like she's a fucking rhesus monkey at the lab. "Trouble focusing?" he asks dryly, hiding behind those damn tinted lenses.

She smirks. "Get a life, John."

"I'll live vicariously through you, Dancing Queen," he quips. "Give Casey my best."

As a reflex she looks to Elliot's desk to see if he has a smart-ass comment to contribute, and for some reason his chair reminds her of the Aristotelian theory of _horror vacui_: nature's fear of empty spaces.

*


	8. Utile et dulce

*  
Some things shouldn't stay empty for too long.

Kurt Moss is quiet and kind and straightforward and she doesn't have to fight the urge to pepper spray him when he introduces himself. He offers to buy her a drink and she likes his voice and that his height allows him to loom over her a little bit.

"Do you want to sit down?" she asks, and he does.

Then all of a sudden it is two o'clock in the morning and she's pressed against her living room wall with his tongue in her mouth and his erection rubbing urgently against her stomach. He tastes like whiskey.

There is no romance in it, and she's glad. If he sticks around long enough, maybe she'll let him play with her hair, but that isn't what she brought him here for. His fingers move to her waist, fumble with the button on her jeans, and she helps him. Kurt's not Elliot and she doesn't care, she won't think about that, but he isn't, but she's so, so wet already and she just wants someone inside of her.

He finds her under the silk of her panties and she gasps, her fingers on his fly momentarily still. But his hand won't cure this ache, she knows it, she needs one thing, and a second later she's got him in her hand and his head is back.

"Oh…fuck…"

"Now," she says, and Now means the time it takes to push him over to the couch and let him fall on top of her. Her underwear is looped crazily around one ankle and his mout finds hers again as he tries to part her thighs.

"Condom…" she pants.

"Fuck… sorry…"

And it takes far too long but then he is there and he is in and she is urging him on, harder, she keeps saying. Harder. She wants to be shattered, she wants to explode, but he is going for a distance medal and doesn't he understand?

She draws her legs up and draws him further in.

He smiles and she is lost, but not lost enough to wonder if she can make it through the night with her eyes closed.

*

Some things are better left off altogether.

She wakes up the next morning in her bed and her shirt and bra are still on, albeit extremely rumpled and she's not sure how a bra can qualify as being on when her left breast isn't even in the cup. Kurt is gone but there is a note with his number, and there is a satisfying soreness in her thighs and she thinks, this will be a good day.

*

Monday comes around and Olivia gets to work ten minutes early. She'd stayed away for a whole day yesterday and had felt a sick twinge of horror upon realizing she expected some sort of special recognition for not feeding this weird, fucked-up addiction to her job. She should find a support group, one for single, work-obsessed women who have never had a serious relationship or children, ladies in their mid-to-late thirties who smile and choke up that tired women's lib crap about being happy and alone. Hi, she'd say. My name's Olivia, and I nurture an unhealthy obsession with my career.

Hi, Olivia.

Except now she has this weekend under her belt and, although she still feels alone, the pathetic edge has been taken off. She has thought about Kurt exactly six times since Friday night, and unless his face shows up in one of the files on her desk, she is pretty sure she'll call him. Prince Charmings don't exist, and the right now closest thing she has to a soulmate can't decide whether she's his buddy or his nuisance kid sister, so yeah. She'll call Kurt.

"Enjoy your day off?" she asks by way of greeting.

Elliot nods. "Good weekend?" he asks, and he looks tired. The mercurial mood-swings must really be catching up with him, she thinks cattily and instantly repents. She now bears the distinction of having had four orgasms in one night from the weekend, she can afford to be nice.

She smiles. "Great weekend."

*

The next time she sees Kurt, he wants to talk. To get to know her. To communicate. She appreciates the effort, but she can barely do this with Elliot and can't imagine her life without _him_. No offense to Kurt, but he hasn't graduated yet to a place where she welcomes his questions.

She likes him though, or at least, likes him enough. He works at a paper, and that freaks her out at first, but she's gotten good at keeping secrets and hiding files, and so she makes a conscious effort not to worry about his job.

This time, after dinner and drinks, she takes off her shirt, and all of a sudden they have a private joke.

"These are nice," he says, and she _does_ love how she can feel the rumble of his words against her breasts. "I can't believe I ran the homerun without getting to second." And she laughs.

They both like to be on top, and the struggle always excites her until she doesn't care who is where as long as the ending stays the same. This time she wins, and it has been too long, too long since she has been able to take sex for granted and she doesn't think she ever will again. The room is quiet except for their panting and the wet friction sounds that emanate from where they're joined. He is so deep, so deep, and she can't stand that he can't go deeper, but she is close and so she reaches between them and touches herself and explodes.

He is right behind her and afterwards, as she pauses for breath with her fingers threaded in his chest hair, he reaches up to caress her face and grins.

"You're a lot to handle, Olivia," he pants.

She gives him a tight smile before rolling off and thinks, You have no idea.

*

It's a Wednesday, and Kathy and Eli drop by to see Elliot. It's alarms Olivia how quickly her heart melts, and she doesn't know how much of it can be attributed to the sight of the baby and how much is from the light that switches on behind Elliot's face as soon as he catches sight of his son.

She can hear him whisper, "Hey Bud," as he bends over the infant's head. His hand spans Eli's tiny skull, and it is odd to see such gentleness in fingers that she's seen brutalize lockers, suspects and – one time – a car door.

Kathy greets her with a polite, "Hi, Olivia," and a smile that could be labeled 'wary,' and Olivia does the only appropriate thing and smiles back because she has homecourt advantage and can afford to be sweet.

Elliot picks up his jacket. "We're going to grab lunch," he explains. "If Warner calls—"

"I brought lunch, Elliot," Kathy interrupts. "The case… I didn't think you'd want to wander too far."

He nods. "We can eat upstairs."

That voice, the one Olivia suspects is seated somewhere in her uterus, is bubbling out of her again, and she doesn't even try to stop it. "Can I take him for a couple minutes?" she asks, nodding toward the baby.

Kathy hesitates, and that weirds Olivia out. Should she promise not to eat him while Kathy enjoys lunch with her husband?

She will not beg to hold something that Kathy has at her disposal every day. "You could use a break, right?"

That works. "Thanks," Kathy says gratefully, and almost instantly Olivia is surrounded by a diaper bag and the smell of Eli Stabler. Elliot smiles tightly at her and then they are gone.

Eli is still sleeping the sleep of a relatively new infant, and she allows herself to marvel at his face in a series of cliches: perfect cheeks, puckered lips, furrowed, feather-y eyebrows. He is a blank canvas. He is a gift. He is perfect. And he is not hers.

Serena kept very few pictures of Olivia as a baby, and she assumes it is because her mother was still too traumatized to appreciate her daughter as a human. This does not bother her as much as it should, now.

There are people everywhere and she Will Not allow herself to sing her mother's lullaby to Elliot's son as she sits in the squad room, but humming isn't singing and Eli smells so sweet, and she knows he hasn't heard this song since the last time she held him.

She is still humming when Elliot and Kathy return, Olivia's left arm is slightly sore from not moving, but she still feels oddly bereft when she hands Eli back to his mother. She tries not to blush with the shame of being a genetic dead-end.

"Thanks again," Kathy offers. "That was…nice."

"Glad I could help." Shit, is that her voice? "He's, uh, he's really getting big."

Kathy smiles, and it's one of a pride that Olivia has never felt and it causes a pang somewhere near the pit of her stomach. "Tell me about it. He's a Stabler."

Good luck with that, Olivia thinks.

"See you tonight," Kathy says quietly as she kisses Elliot on the forehead. His eyes do not leave his computer screen.

*

Kurt wears pullovers but she buys him an oxford dress shirt because sometime in the last several years she started preferring her men in business attire. He is wearing it the next time she sees him and she tries not to think in comparisons, because otherwise he wears it all wrong. It should be tighter across the chest with the sleeves rolled up, and it should damned well be with a necktie.

He is already serious about her, and she is keeping him around because, hell, right now it's him or nothing. He's a successful, normal man who's good in bed and doesn't mind most of the shit in her life; he should be easier for her to like.

Should be.

It has been four weeks, and last night he dropped a bomb.

"You know," he says into her ear. "This could be easier if we didn't live so far away from each other."

She rolls her eyes and thinks maybe her age has mellowed her, because five years ago this commitment shit would have meant him on his ass on her welcome mat. "It's twelve blocks, Kurt."

"Twelve blocks too many," he says into her neck. "You smell so good. Move in with me."

Olivia does not have an answer that will make this end well and she's ready to get this show on the road, so she says nothing and rolls him over. Her hips grind onto him and he bucks up underneath her and gasps. She can feel something building up inside of her and she feels like a pressure cooker, bursting with some sort of nervous energy, and she is so, so glad she's not alone tonight.

He is smiling as he comes inside of her, she knows this only because she can hear his low chuckle as he gets closer – her eyes are still closed.

*

Elliot is comfortable for her and Kurt is not. She thinks that this is her problem as she pours and hands Elliot a cup of coffee.

The four of them are brainstorming, working through a theory about the star QB who may or may not be in the closet, and she is exhausted. Kurt has been spending the night more and more often, and while she can't complain about the sex, her circadian rhythm is shot to hell. Sleepless or no, her brain knows the drill by now, and fortunately her subconscious is willing to work when the rest of her mind has checked out.

"Well they can't fire him for being gay," she interjects. "He could sue."

"No, he can't," Elliot responds. "All those contracts have morals clauses. Sponsor can give him the axe if he damages their reputation."

Fin makes a wordplay on power drink and she listens, but she can't stop studying Elliot. He's tired, tired like he's been treading water and then gave up and decided to learn to like life without oxygen. This back with the family shit must be doing a number on him, she decides with just a hint of cattiness. Must be hard to hack it with a baby that young when you're that old.

She will not, will _not_ let that apply to anyone other than him. It's not like she's any closer to having kids now than she could be in five years.

*

And then.

Kurt pulls out of her and she rolls over to her side. She is forcing herself to be comfortable with his arm around her at night, and she waits for him to dispose of the condom before he settles.

She hears his sharp intake of breath and rolls over. "What is it?"

He tears his eyes away from the ripped condom and meets her gaze. There is a look on his face and she recognizes it as Panic.

Olivia rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling as Kurt has a meltdown and finishes cleaning up.

Fuck.

*

She has taken three pregnancy tests. All of them are negative and when she tells Kurt, he sighs in relief. Apparently even he has his limits when it comes to speedy commitments.

The line on the stick stares up at her like it's smirking, and she feels self-conscious and barren and old.

Double fuck.

*


	9. Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit

9. Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit by hollelujah

Author's Notes:

This chapter was originally supposed to be longer, but for some reason it is not letting me upload the rest of it. Please be patient with the first part of it until the kinks get worked out - thanks!

*

So it's finally happened, Elliot has met Kurt and has done it in a way only Elliot would think was appropriate. She remembers the look on his face when he saw her in the doorway, remembers feeling very, very little surprise at finding him in Kurt's office, which makes her feel good that she knows her partner so well, which in turn makes her feel ridiculous that he's the only man she's invested that sort of time into.

Ever since their little fertility scare, Kurt has shifted into overdrive. He doesn't want kids, he says. But he wants her. Move in with me Olivia, he keeps saying, and she wonders what he'll do if she finally says yes. He's in the newspaper business, after all, and she has this bizarre feeling that the day she concedes to him there will be a picture of her, panicked and running from the inevitable, splashed across the day's front page.

Extra! Extra! Olivia Benson Finally Loses Identity, Moves In With Pushy Boyfriend.

IAB screws her over again for old times' sake, and the case becomes one more Thing To Forget. People are still disgustingly cruel to one another, and she sends up a silent prayer that she is not pregnant; it should be a crime to usher children into the world she inhabits.

"I'm just glad you have somebody," Elliot says, and she smiles because that's what normal people do when their best friend says things like that about a boyfriend, but her face feels too tight and her teeth hurt and she grimly wonders if he can tell.

*

At his insistence, she meets Kurt for lunch. To talk, he says, yet she still shows up.

Talking with Kurt is like swimming in a murky sea of paperback romance novels and self-help books, and while he gives her unsolicited insights into Why She Can't Commit, Olivia lets her mind wander and is thankful for the seven hundredth time that he busted his latex on the day her eggs decided to phone it in. She cannot imagine the bookshelf space she would need for the child-rearing tomes this man would undoubtedly accrue.

"…and you know I think the world of you, so this is in no way a criticism, but…"

Lately she's been trying this thing in her personal life where she goes against everything she's used to; after all, the status quo hasn't been doing much for her. Every step with Kurt sends off a warning bell that says "Be Alone!" and she's ignored it. But right now she is beginning to wonder why Alone was so bad, because Kurt's voice keeps flying at her and he's _still_ wearing that fucking shirt all wrong, and she notices for the third time that the skin along his jawline is rather droopy. Crepe-y, even. And are his fingernails just a tad shinier than normal? Did he get a manicure?

No, no, she tells herself. Stop looking for a way out of this.

Do it, the neural pathways in her head urge. Get back to normal. Tell this condescending prick where he can stick it. And then ask him where he got his nails done.

Now, now, says another voice. That's not polite. Give the boy a chance.

That second voice sounds suspiciously grandmotherly and British, and Olivia's always liked Julie Andrews. She lets Kurt continue.

"…so all of that to say, I'm offering you an ultimatum," he is saying.

And just like that, she's back in the game.

She clears her throat and flattens out her hands. She hadn't even realized they were balled into fists until the cold formica meets her clammy palms. "An ultimatum?" she says. It is barely a question.

He nods.

Oh, hell no, she thinks, and Grandmother Andrews agrees.

*

She does not miss Kurt.

She does _not_ miss Kurt.

She doesn't miss him, but for some reason her apartment no longer holds the appeal it once did; she finds herself working longer hours again and avoiding her bedroom. Something about the smell of it turns her stomach.

It's been three weeks since Kurt's expulsion from her life, and she stopped thinking about him the moment she left his office after dropping a box of his things with his assistant. She'll feel different later, she knows that, but right now being single is ever onward and upward, she's feeling great. Kicking her heels up and living life and all that crap. No one to clean up after, no one to share with, no one to cook for. It's sad, but familiar, and her old life has welcomed her back with a vengeance. Elliot has asked her how she's doing every day since their bonding at the bar, and she warms again to the idea of him looking out for her in a way that has nothing to do with kevlar or clearing a room or IAB.

She skips meals and sleeps by herself and her bathroom doesn't smell like Kurt's cologne anymore. She's alone again, and she is back to rinsing out a single wine goblet every other night. And all is back to normal.

*


	10. A posse ad esse

As a general rule, she does not allow herself to remember anything about her time undercover as an inmate unless she is sitting at her desk and knows that she won't get too far into the flashback without someone soon needing her attention somewhere else. She's seen a therapist twice now and will never tell anyone that, ever.

She is still terrified sometimes; scared of how frail she actually can be without a service weapon, hand-to-hand combat techniques be damned. She remembers his hand on her face, the surreal, overwhelming feeling that she's in over her head. She can recall the smell of the grimy mattress, of his blood and even his privates and it makes her sick, but not as sick as when she remembers the utter feeling of helplessness. It had crashed onto her as soon as Harris shut the door, drenched her senses and oozed down her throat until her vocal chords shriveled and she thought she would suffocate. Sometimes she lays in bed at night and wonders if she should practice screaming, just to make sure she still can.

Her memories nauseate her, and she shakes her head and tries to focus on what Elliot is saying to Fin about their latest victim's stories. The girl's account is questionable, it's full of holes, it's mesh, it's Swiss Cheese.

The thought of any kind of cheese makes her stomach curl up again, and she briefly considers making a run for the bathroom before all of a sudden it's too late and she bends over and empties her breakfast into the trash can under her desk.

She can feel the sudden silence and the stares of everyone in her vicinity, and she refuses, refuses to lift her head up and overtly expose how gross she feels. Apparently no one in the room has ever seen a woman throw up; something she's eaten has not agreed with her.

"Here." Elliot is crouched beside her with the water bottle from her desk and a paper towel, shielding her profile from her co-workers who still have not moved on with their morning. She can smell his cologne and his coffee and his fabric softener and even the Head & Shoulders shampoo/conditioner hybrid that her cheap-ass partner uses, and the scents make her head spin, not in a good way. And now she's dry heaving and this is, really, just perfect. Not two months into reclaiming her life as a single woman and already she's down with something.

Elliot's hand is making small circles on her back and it's so typically him, that he would turn into Dad at the first sign of trouble. "Okay?" he asks quietly after a moment.

Her head is still under her desk. "No. Make everyone go away," she moans.

Nothing is said, but a second later his voice is by her ear again. "No one's looking, Liv. Go get cleaned up."

In the restroom, she rinses out her mouth and splashes some cold water on her face and then stares at her reflection for what has got to be something like thirty seconds. She looks tired. She looks old. She looks sick. Just something I ate, she thinks. Something I ate.

But Olivia has been a creature of habit in the culinary realm, and so not even she can put a mental block on the suspicion that is spreading in her gut like a wildfire.

She goes back to her desk and she's pretty sure she's making her lips do a smile-esque shape to ward off co-worker questions. Are you sick? she has been asked three times. Nope, she thinks. Just doing the routine breakfast jettison. Yes I'm sick, you fucker. At least, I'd better be.

Warner picks up on the third ring and, why yes, she does have some time for Olivia this morning. See you in twenty minutes, she says. This had better be good.

She can feel Elliot's inquisitive stare as she grabs her keys and coat. "Doctor's appointment," she offers. "I'll be back after lunch." She tosses a crumpled post-it note into the garbage can and notices that someone has already changed the trash liner.

He follows her gaze. "It had puke in it. You want me to wait for you?" he asks, gesturing to the victim's account that up until five minutes ago was the hot topic of discussion in the bullpen, and she looks at him. If she wasn't so damned preoccupied, she's pretty sure the expression on his face, the solicitude in his voice would make her warm and soft inside, in a good platonic way.

She nods. "I'll make it quick."

*

Some things are better left lengthy.

It is five hours later and she is on a park bench with a square of gauze on her arm and the words 'False Negative' running through her mind on a loop.

"Home pregnancy tests don't detect any of the hCG levels if they're done too early," Melinda's voice informed her, and fuck if she didn't sound like she was shouting from the inside of a well. "Blood tests don't even detect it until anywhere from six to twelve days after implantation."

Olivia knew that. Didn't she know that? She knew that.

"So I'm—" and then Olivia's voice had died somewhere in her throat.

Pregnant, Melinda had helpfully supplied in a tone that was less excited than acutely curious and more gravely concerned. And then some things happened that she doesn't really remember now, and Olivia was standing up and Melinda had looked concerned some more, and after that there were concrete stairs and cracks in the sidewalk and a near-tragedy when Olivia had been too lost in her own head to see the Don't Walk signal. And now she is here on a park bench and there are rollerbladers and dog-walkers and little old ladies and moms with their strollers and each and every one of them is keeping her from going apeshit crazy with maniacal laughter in the middle of Central Park.

There are two little boys running ahead of a frazzled mother, and Olivia would bet her next paycheck that the presence of two children in this particular family is taken for granted. They don't look particularly idyllic, the bigger one is pushing his younger brother into the ground and the little one is screaming, but mom intervenes and settles the mini-brawl and Olivia feels a pang of something that makes her heart quicken. That woman is a mother.

And now so is she.

There is a baby inside of her. A tiny, alien-like being that is less than two inches long and weighs less than ten grams. She is intensely aware of its presence inside her, now, and feels like she should put yellow caution tape around where she's sitting in order to keep those fucking rollerbladers aware of her condition. Just to be safe.

Her body is not her own, she is aware of that on some level, even if it's all still sinking in. Bomb in the oven, some long-lost girlfriend's voice tells her brain. You've got a bomb in the oven.

Bun in the oven. Bun.

Any minute now, she'll wake up and the alarm will be buzzing and she'll have to remember to iron her shirt for today while her bagel is toasting. And then she'll go to work and Elliot will tell her what Eli's been up to and she'll pretend she loves hearing about it. And then she'll go home and—

Elliot.

With a start, she realizes her phone is still on silent and she fishes it out of her pocket. Thirteen missed calls. Elliot cell. Four new voicemails. There is a moment of indecision as she remembers her promise to him to make it quick.

She decides she will apologize to her partner later and phones Cragen. She's taking a personal day.

*

It is eight o'clock and she is on her couch with what feels like the same thunderstruck facial expression that she's had since Melinda's office, when she hears the knock at the door. Of course.

Elliot looks tired and calm and she is relieved. Her central nervous system is such that if he'd blustered in to demand why she hadn't come back to work, she might have just huddled in the corner with a sock puppet and some tin foil and indulged herself with a good meltdown. But he's steady right now, he's in his Stabler the Rock mode and she can use some of that.

"Come on in," she says, and immediately becomes consumed with a ridiculous fear that her voice will betray her secret.

"Everything okay?" he asks. "Cragen said you were under the weather."

"Something like that," she answers. "Can I get you something to drink?"

It's hit-or-miss lately with them, and she's surprised when he nods and shrugs off his jacket. "Beer'd be great."

He is sitting on her couch when she returns with his beer and shit shit SHIT she hopes he doesn't read too much into the fact that she's refilled her glass of water instead of drinking with him; she'd spent part of her afternoon cursing their post-Kurt bar bonding. Tomorrow she'll research Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and punish herself for not knowing everything.

"How was the afternoon?" she asks as she settles across from him.

He shrugs and takes a pull from his bottle. "Didn't get much done. You didn't miss anything."

"Hm."

It is quiet, and not comfortable stake-out quiet when there isn't a lot to say and both of them are fine with that. This silence is pulsing with something, and she figures it's probably his questions and her answer, or maybe it's just the presence in her abdomen that's making her feel vibes in the atmosphere. Soon she'll be one of those ladies in a long flowy skirt who reads auras and chi and crystals and shit.

Elliot's curiosity is up, and he'll ask a question soon that she'll have to answer and shit she feels her news as it crawls up from somewhere in her uterus, up past her lungs and into her throat as Elliot takes another swig and looks at her. "How was—"

"I'm pregnant."

Shit. Ta-da.

Everything is frozen. She's pretty sure that not one molecule of Elliot's entire being has shifted; his hand still holds his beer right at his chin, his eyes are blank. She could leave and come back and he'll still be on the couch, assimilating information, making things make sense. Forming a response.

The air has been sucked out of the room along with Elliot's ability to move and she is thinking, please, _please_ be something other than disappointed or angry.

"Elliot?" Is that her voice again? Secret's out, she wants to tell her vocal chords. Be normal. And while you're at it, tell my eyes to stop leaking. She isn't crying, but today has been too much and she's so, so close. "El, say something."

After a moment, an eyelid flickers and his mouth works, but nothing comes out. He is dumbstruck and she is staring at him, she knows that it probably isn't helping him formulate something to say. But she needs this, she needs him to say that he's surprised and shocked and whatever the hell else but that he'll be on board. She doesn't ask a lot from him, but she needs him to say this, more than she'll ever admit to him.

She isn't sure how much time has passed before she ventures to speak again. "Elliot?"

He looks at her then, like he just realized she's still there. His hesitation is nauseating.

"Liv, I—"

Wait. Maybe that's not his hesitation. Her stomach flips over in her abdomen and begins sending signals to her brain to get her the fuck to a toilet.

Elliot is still trying. "…who?"

"Wait a—fuck." And then she is running with her hand over her mouth to the bathroom, where she empties her stomach contents into the commode and then dry heaves some more when the scent of her bathroom candle is processed by her olfactory senses. First thing tomorrow she is going to do her best to make her apartment smell like absolutely nothing.

She is rinsing her mouth out in the sink when she hears him in the doorway behind her, and she cringes at the reflection of his eyes in the mirror. This will not be painless.

Elliot does not look angry, but her guess is that he's not ten seconds away from Googling baby names for her, either. He looks… confused? Shocked?

Join the club, she thinks.

"Is it Moss?"

He says Kurt's last name like he's referring to a suspect. Who else? "Yes."

"I thought you two—"

She grabs a washcloth and wets it before running it over her face. This conversation will be easier if she's underneath something. "We did. He doesn't know."

"Aren't you going to…"

"Tell him? I don't know. Maybe."

Irish Catholic father of five does not appear to approve, and she was expecting that. Really. But still, come on. She hasn't had a lot of time to make any decisions – twenty-four hours ago she was taking inventory of her lingerie and contemplating getting Casey to persuade her to hit the singles scene again. Now she's a forty-year-old woman who's trying to think of a way to explain to her partner that being knocked up by a casual ex-boyfriend might not be so terrible, maybe. She's not sure yet but this might be something she can do.

Elliot stands in front of her, his brain twelve inches in front of his skull trying desperately to assimilate this information. She can see the wheels spinning. "You don't think he deserves to know? Are you keeping it?"

She uncovers the rest of her face and his fucking eyebrows are screaming 'Whore!' at her as they slant down in a disparaging V over his eyes. Or maybe they're screaming 'What's Happening??' All of her mental faculties have been exhausted and she can't tell anymore. "I don't know," she says simply. "I don't know anything right now. Warner just told me today."

Silence.

By the time he speaks, her scalding-hot washcloth has cooled to room temperature. She is absently wondering how much eye makeup has survived the tsunami of shock that Warner has released into her life when his mouth finally opens.

"Congratulations," he says quietly.

Silence.

"Thank you," she murmurs, but this isn't right. Elliot should be smiling right now, that kind, warm smile he uses approximately once every five years. He should be calling Kathy, calling the guys, asking questions, being nosy. He should be telling her how to go about things with Kurt, whether or not she should move to a different, kid-friendly neighborhood. Elliot should be overbearing and intrusive and…and…a _partner_ . This cryptic, stoic, silent shit is killing her.

Silence.

By the time she figures out that the theme for this encounter is 'Heavy Quiet with Tense Breathing,' he is awkwardly patting her arm. "Call us if you need anything," he offers, but something in his voice is just a bit off.

"Thank you," she says again, because, really, what else can she say?

"You coming in tomorrow?" he asks, backing toward the door. She nods. He nods. "Good. See you in the morning."

And then he is gone.

The idea that there is an actual person ensconced safely within her body has not quite made its home in her head yet, because the loneliness hits her the second she sees his retreating back.


	11. Terra incognita

*

In the crowded squadroom, Olivia can still hear his breathing over the ringing of phones and the chatter of their colleagues; she wonders briefly if pregnancy comes with super-powers like extra-sensitive hearing. Or a heightened sense of smell. Or projectile vomiting.

She has been living her life as a conscientous mother-to-be for two weeks now, and the sensation that someone Upstairs is playing a practical joke overwhelms her at times. Her nights in bed are spent praying to whatever's up there, her hand on her stomach and her eyes on the ceiling. Let this be real, she thinks. Please let this be real.

Sometimes she is thirteen years old again and her mother is on the phone with her friend. Serena had preferred keeping her past and her private life, well, private, but she'd gone through a phase where she'd found it acceptable to have a friend, a fellow faculty member at the school. It was brief, brief like her mother's infatuation with Jane Fonda work-out tapes and her appreciation for Captain and Tennille.

Olivia can still hear her mother's side of those conversations, coming in hushed whispers through the walls in her memory.

"I remember thinking, 'This can't be real. This cannot be happening.' Like a loop, over and over." Pause. Olivia could hear her mother inhale shakily, the kind of breath that routinely accompanied tears. "I didn't know how to raise a child… I still don't know how. Sometimes I still don't know if it's real. And she's just _there_ all the time, looking at me, just watching, waiting for me to do something wrong. Sometimes I just want to scream…"

Not-so-coincidentally, that particular phase of her mother's quickly became a time when Olivia learned to appreciate being alone with loud music in her room.

Ambiguous maternal instincts aside, Serena had done what she could as a mother. Olivia has to believe this, has to believe that her mother was sick and damaged and not just incapable of loving her only child. She has to believe this just like she has to believe that she can do better.

Let this be real, she pleads again silently. Let this be real.

The rest of her time she is firmly entrenched in the present, working with a man who has not managed to look her in the eye once since she broke the big news four days before.

"Olivia?"

Startled, she blinks at him. Obviously her pre-natal super-powers are lacking, because otherwise she would have detected the change in Elliot's breathing as he'd stopped working and began trying to get her attention.

He looks blankly, pointedly at her abdomen. "Everything okay?"

Her eyes follow his gaze to her torso, where her fingers are absently moving in a circular motion. Of course her stomach is flat – nothing to proclaim that, at the moment, she is so much more than just herself. And of couse she looks ridiculous. She clears her throat and fights the heat that washes over her face. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks."

Because the thing of it is, she is elated and terrified to be pregnant, and as incredible as the thought is, the joy she feels is often shoved to the back of her mind by the dark, hulking questions in her mind.

How will she keep her job?

Should Kurt know?

Is she crazy to think she can do this?

Will Elliot ever stop looking like someone tazed him in the nuts?

*

Human Resources takes a sudden interest in every aspect of Olivia's wellbeing; she has filled out approximately two feet of paperwork stating that she won't sue the city for choosing to stay in her position in SVU.

It finally feels real when she does the big reveal to Casey at lunch one day and the response is just what Olivia needs; Novak stares at her with a grin, asks, "Are you shitting me?" and orders Olivia a piece of chocolate mousse pie. "For the mother-to-be," she triumphantly announces to the waitress.

It is a moment of female bonding, compromised only by the fact that Olivia is still wearing her service weapon and Casey is due in court in twenty minutes.

Casey actually hugs her after lunch – hugs her! – like Olivia has announced she is moving to the moon or has been diagnosed with an incurable disease, but it's something. It's more than Elliot is doing, and fuck it all but there is a very quiet space in her life where her big dumb man animal of a partner used to be. Elliot is a shadow now, a guardian angel who monitors her every move. He has yet to engage in a conversation about the fact that she – Olivia Benson – is actually expecting offspring, but he has taken upon himself the sacred duty of making sure she doesn't do anything not mentioned in What to Expect When You're Expecting.

"Seriously?" she asks him the day he grabs a box of files from her. "It's like, five pounds."

"Not supposed to carry things in front of you," he throws over his shoulder.

Well then.

Her co-workers have been surprisingly considerate; she had braced herself for jokes from John about alien babies and conspiracy theories, but so far he has been the consummate gentleman. Even Fin smiles and gives her a quick hug. "Don't overdo it," he cautions.

From his position behind her, always hovering behind her, she can feel Elliot's quiet assent. It has taken one broken condom to turn her colleagues into three sloppy guard dogs.

*

"You know where you're transferring to yet?" Elliot asks her on a muggy New York sidewalk. A hot dog vendor has the nerve to peddle his wares within two miles of her and her stomach is turning; Elliot's question is the best thing to get her mind off of the smell.

"Um," she swallows. "I've already talked to HR. I'm staying."

They are at a crosswalk, and he stares at her. "Okay. But I meant after."

After…?

He sees the blank look on her face. "After… the birth. After the baby's born, where you'll work. Do you know yet?"

She nods slowly, because she's so, so sure at this point that one of them is missing something obvious. "Yes," she affirms. "After. I'll be at SVU. Cragen said you'll probably have to have a tempor—"

"You're staying?"

"—ary partner. Yes, I'm staying."

He doesn't say anything, but his eyes stay narrowed for approximately three days and she's sure this won't be the last she hears of it.

*

Chase Witten is an eighteen year old kid with severe acne, a history of manifesting the sociopathic triad, and the unfortunate distinction of being spotted by a witness at the crime scene. He also bears the distinction, Olivia thinks later, of making the shit hit the fan.

Chase is halfway down the steps in front of his high school entrance and decides to run when he sees Olivia and Munch approaching. All of suddent it's a chase and her doctor said she could run, she's always been a runner, so she pursues him, pushing her anxieties into the back of her head. Munch is behind her on the radio, a little too far behind for her liking, and she files this away in the back of her mind to tease him with later; the old man gets outrun by the pregnant woman in heels.

Chase is fast, but she's no slouch, and she's quickly gaining on him when she hears Fin yelling something she can't understand just as he and Elliot come crashing out of the school building through a side exit. She keeps her eye on Chase, pumping her legs faster and relishing the adrenaline. I am woman, she thinks. Roar.

"Olivia!" She recognizes Elliot's voice, but he's not giving her any information that makes her need to stop and she continues to run.

There are footsteps on the pavement to the rear and left of her, and then Elliot almost collides with her as their paths overlap and he outpaces her. He's fast, and she's ribbed him before about being outrun by her and she's pretty sure she could take him on a good day but… now he is running like a fucking sled-dog, several steps in front of her and gaining on Chase. She continues to push, wanting to get this one, hoping for Chase to slow down so she can have a better chance at him.

But it is too late, Elliot has decided to be Superman and has tackled the high school senior, who is writhing on the ground underneath a former Marine who doesn't take kindly to being forced into a footchase. She gets to them a second later as her partner cuffs Chase, and she reaches for their suspect's other arm to lead him to the car.

"The fuck did you come from?" she pants after he mirandizes the kid.

He ignores her as he puts Chase in the car; she gets most of her breath back as he slams the door before turning to face her. He looks Very Angry. "If you pull a stunt like that again," he says angrily, "I'll go to Cragen myself and have you put on desk duty."

She blinks. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," he snaps. "The last thing I need is you getting hurt trying to apprehend a suspect."

New York is humid, and they are both sweating with the exertion of their run. The words fly out his mouth and linger in the summer air; Olivia absorbs the impact of them and she can feel the edges of her vision go red. She will not take this from him. She will kick his ass up and down this parking lot. She will—

Munch assesses the situation and calls to Elliot for the keys to their car. He and Fin apparently just want to get the hell out of Dodge.

"The last thing you need?" she asks incredulously. "Can you please explain to me—"

"Elliot!" Munch calls.

"I got it," Elliot calls back, before stalking to the driver's side of the squad car and pealing away with Fin.

Munch looks at her like he doesn't know what to say. She doesn't blame him.

*

Their meeting with Cragen is Not Going Well.

"Why is this even a discussion?" Elliot snarls at her, and she doesn't flinch because this is who Elliot has been for the past week. Apparently Olivia's decision not to transfer to Maintenance Staff is ruining his life.

He is standing beside her in physical terms only, his hands are on his hips and his elbow is jutting into her personal space; her peripheral vision detects that his fingers are flexing and unflexing and she thinks he might leave bruises on himself.

Cragen looks more and more tired with each private meeting they have had over the past several years, but this one takes the cake. She cannot imagine the state of his blood pressure. "Elliot," he says after a moment. "Olivia is aware that she is entitled to a transfer, if that's what she wants. Other than that, she's due for maternity and extended leave. If she's comfortable, she can continue in her position here as long as—"

"A pregnant sex crimes detective," her partner interrupts. His tone is splattering Rage all over the office walls. "She'll be more vulnerable in a fight, in a chase—hell, do I really need to remind everyone that the leading cause of death in pregnant women is homi—"

This is ridiculous and that is enough, and she says so. "Stop it, Elliot," she interrupts sharply.

Cragen continues, nonplussed. "As long as she is physically able to keep up her job performance, Olivia is within her rights to remain here until her maternity leave, whenever that may be." Cragen's eyes look old and pissy. "You of all people should appreciate the flexibility this unit has demonstrated concerning time off for family."

This hits close to home; everyone knows that Elliot's attendance record after Eli's birth was spotty, at best. "Bullshit," he bites out. "This isn't about family, it's about safety. It's about doing our jobs. Do you really think a serial rapist is going to be intimidated by a badge being flashed by a pregnant woman? Not to mention what could happen if—"

"I'm right here," she snaps. "If you have a problem you had damn well better address it to me. I'm not one of your fucking kids."

He turns, then, and she wishes he hadn't. He is well and truly pissed, and she would love to know what started it but at this point, she's pissed too and his reasons have ceased to matter. "I have a problem with you compromising your safety and the safety of your colleagues, going off half-assed—"

"Oh, give me a break!"

"—In some half-baked quest to prove you can have it all!"

They are practically toe-to-toe now, and she wonders somewhere in the back of her head if this is what Cragen does now, if he enjoys spending his days just waiting around for them to slug it out. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she demands. "You think I can't do my job just because I'm pregnant?"

She is sounding like a bad Lifetime movie, and their volume is increasing.

"You running off half-cocked after a murder suspect—"

"Oh, fuck you," she growls. "If you're going to question my judgment—"

"—pulling that Wonder Woman shit when you're—in your—"

"My what?" she snarls.

"That is enough," Cragen says firmly. Their boss hasn't flinched once. "Unless there are any performance-related problems you haven't told me about," he says evenly, looking at Elliot. "This meeting is over. Detective Benson will remain in this unit until either she sees fit to step back or I determine that she is unable to meet the standards of performance I expect from all of you."

She doesn't need to look at her partner to know that his jaw is clenched to a degree that is unhealthy for his molars. "Captain," she starts, but Elliot snaps out of it before she can finish and is heading for the door.

"Work this out," Cragen calls after him.

Slam.

He says nothing for a moment, and she refuses to let her recent moodiness get the best of her. The last thing she needs now is to start tearing up at Elliot being an asshole, especially given the recent frequency of the occurrence.

"What I just said, goes," Cragen states quietly. "You're welcome to stay, as long as that's in your best interest. That being said, I will not tolerate you endangering yourself just to keep up with your colleagues."

She nods, and there is an angry lump in her throat. Keep up with her colleagues, indeed. Has he seen Munch run? She could be carrying triplets and still outpace him. "Yes, sir," she manages.

"And you will begin to scale back in the next few months," he continues. "That's not me as your boss, it's me as your friend. So don't slap me with a discrimination suit just because I'm trying to look out for you."

Olivia smiles wanly. "Thank you."

He nods curtly. "That's all."

Elliot is not at his desk when she comes out of Cragen's office; she begins working on paperwork and doesn't even look up when he comes back from wherever he was twenty minutes later. There is still something frightening rolling off of him in waves, and she wishes he would take a class at the Learning Annex on How to Chill the Fuck Out.

It is several minutes before she ventures a look at him. He is staring, glaring at his computer screen and his face is a study in suppressed rage, all furrows and crags and shadows where his brows draw together over his eyes. She hasn't heard him hit a key for awhile, and his eyes aren't moving. He's just sitting there.

She clears her throat, loudly. Nothing.

"You speaking to me?" she asks after a moment.

His silence is the only answer she receives; she wallows in déjà vu and the rest of the afternoon cannot go fast enough.

*


	12. Quantum suficit

"As much as suffices..."

*

Olivia crawls out of bed, feeling strangely refreshed. After a moment, she realizes it is because she hasn't been in and out of the bathroom all night. The absence of nausea is wonderful.

With her toothbrush in her mouth, she pulls on her favorite jeans and pulls them shut. They fit perfectly.

She stares at the mirror in horror – her stomach is perfectly flat. The toothbrush snaps in two.

Olivia gasps and then she is awake, her eyes snap open and take a moment to adjust to the darkness, and her hands are searching desperately, searching…

Ah.

Calming, she feels her abdomen again, just to be certain. Sure enough, there is a slight swelling, a hardness that is perceptible to her searching fingers. It's not much, but it's there, and the terror she felt in her dream fades away as she caresses it lightly, humming her mother's lullaby.

Moments later, the notes are becoming more pitchy as she drifts off again. As it has before, her mind latches onto the latin phrase horror vacui.

The fear of empty spaces.

*

She shows up to work wearing a shirt that is two sizes larger than normal; she'd spent her weekend doing some shopping after she'd caught Casey eyeing her neckline at lunch with a mixture of envy and distaste.

"Seriously, Olivia," she'd said. "Get a bigger bra."

So it is with an anxiety-riddled psyche that she walks into the squad room, hoping no one will notice her wardrobe adjustments and raging at the fact that she cares this much. Never again will she take being a non-gestating officer of the law for granted.

Munch and Elliot are arguing when she gets to her desk; John is halfway through eviscerating what she can only assume is one of Elliot's theories when he stops mid-sentence and stares at her.

She will not blush. She is pregnant and it is not a crime. She will not blush.

"What?" she asks him defensively. John shifts as Elliot becomes enamored with whatever information is on his monitor.

Munch shrugs. "Nothing. It's just that seeing you model the latest in fashions of the delicate way is going to take some getting used to."

"The delicate way?" she grumbles. "Since when do you borrow from Victorian etiquette? Besides, this isn't even a maternity shirt."

"Either way, it's different. You look good, Liv."

The space across the desk from her is devoid of any kind of response, and she rewards Munch's compliment with a small smile and wonders just how good she looks.

*

The silence in the car is overwhelming, so she nearly jumps a foot out of her seat when Elliot's phone trills loudly from his pocket. He silences it without checking the screen and this does not surprise her in the least; she has decided that everything he does lately is designed to make her burn with curiosity. Two months ago she would have just asked him who it was, but two months have wrought a hell of a lot more change than just the way they talk to each other. Or don't talk.

If Elliot's demeanor has been screaming 'Asshole!' lately, it may be because there is only so much consideration he can physically demonstrate at one time, and lately all of it has been channeled into begrudgingly making Olivia's life as comfortable as possible. If it wasn't for the disgruntled scowl that has taken up permanent resident on his face, she'd think he was actually being supportive.

"Vitamins," he had muttered this morning as they were leaving.

"Excuse me?"

"Pre-natal vitamins. Don't forget them." And he had abruptly nodded his head in the direction of the bottle on her desk.

"Thanks," she had muttered.

She would love, _love_ to know how things are going at home, because she's pretty sure the last time Elliot was this pissy was after Kathy moved out. She refuses to believe that the result of her indiscreet birth control practices with the colossally annoying Kurt is the only thing ruining his life. Even pissy Elliot finds it in himself to be helpful, though – however aggravating and patronizing it can be; she has not pulled her own chair out for weeks and—

Her thoughts are interrupted by an insistent ring, and she wishes Elliot would answer his damn phone.

He is looking at her warily. "You gonna answer that?" he asks.

It's her phone. Oh. "Uh…" she mutters intelligently while she fumbles around in her pocket. "Benson."

"Olivia?"

"This is. Who is this?"

"This is Jennifer calling from Dr. Patel's office calling to confirm your appointment at 2:30 today."

Fuck. Along with the super-sensitive olfactory senses that pregnancy provides, Olivia has found recently that she occasionally has the memory retention of a goldfish. "Uh…" she says again. She can feel Elliot staring at her and wishes he would break the ice and mouth 'Who is it?' like he used to. She might even tell him. "I… shit. Sorry. But I completely forgot and I'm working today… is there any way I could reschedule."

All she can hear for a moment is the sound of Jennifer's fingers moving at super-sonic speed over her computer's keyboard. "Hmm… one moment, please."

She looks at Elliot to mouth 'Doctor's office,' but he looks away as soon as she turns. Idiot.

"Olivia?"

"Yes?"

"Okay. I'm afraid Dr. Patel doesn't have another opening for three more weeks, which would put you into your second trimester…"

Shit. Shit shit shit. "Okay, so…"

"So we would strongly advise you try to make your appointment today."

Olivia sighs. "I'll see what I can do. Thanks."

Jennifer, apparently relishing her role as The Enforcer in the universe of Dr. Patel's pregnant clients, smiles. Olivia knows this because her voice when she responds, "Thank you, Olivia. See you this afternoon!" consists of pure fucking sunshine.

Great.

"Who are you calling?" her statue of a partner asks when she starts scrolling through her contacts.

"Casey. She's taking me to my appointment today."

"Casey's taking you to your appointment?"

She hits send and looks at him. "Yes."

It isn't until the fourth ring that she hears him clear his throat and she automatically braces herself for whatever is about to come out of his mouth, because that's what she does now.

"I could take you."

He says it so quietly that she asks him to repeat himself.

"I said, I could take you."

Ring. Ring.

Casey's bitchy voicemail greeting picks up; stunned, Olivia disconnects the call. "You don't have to—"

"I know." She ventures a glance to the driver's seat and he is staring out his window at the pedestrian crossing; his fingers have the steering wheel in a death grip and it makes the scars on his knuckles blend better with the rest of his skin. "It's no problem. Save one of you a trip."

"If you say so," she mutters.

He scowls. "Or go with Casey. Whatever, it's your kid."

The light turns green and the growl that erupts from her lips startles both of them, but it's already filled up the space between them and so she lets it happen, lets the frustration and the fury and the hormones combine into one glorious whirlwind of anger. "What is your fucking _problem_??" she demands. "Because I would really appreciate it if you would grow a pair and talk to me."

He looks at her for what seems like the first time in months, _really_ looks. She really wishes he wouldn't, and it's not just because he's maneuvering their car through downtown Manhattan. He's looking at her like she's scum, like she's done something not worth even the hint of forgiveness. "Since when do you care?" he snaps. "Since when do you give a flying fuck what's going on with the rest of us?"

"_Excuse_ me?"

"Yeah, we get it, you're pregnant and you're starting a family and working and all that. Just tell me one thing," he bites out. "Did you actually _like_ Moss, or did you just need a quick donor?"

The acid in his words fly at her, catch her squarely in the chest and she is breathless with hurt and fury. She sucks air in through stiff lips and processes.

Elliot regrets it immediately, she can see that even through the red haze that has just covered her vision, his eyes widen just a little bit like he's scared and he closes his mouth.

Good idea.

Olivia still hasn't responded; what the hell is she supposed to say to that? And what business of it is his, anyway?

She realizes, to her horror, that her eyes are dangerously moist and she scrambles for control.

"Liv," he starts quietly, and she prays he doesn't notice the condition of her tearducts.

"Fuck you," she says, but it isn't loud enough and her voice breaks in the middle of it. "Just drive."

"I'm--"

"Shut up."

"Perfect," he mutters under his breath. "That's perfect."

After two city blocks, he opens the glovebox and retrieves a travel pack of tissues before placing them on the console beside her. Of course he noticed her fucking tearducts, because the problem with Elliot is that he's extraordinarily obtuse in all the wrong places; sometimes she thinks she could really, truly resent him for that.

The air is dense with silence for the rest of the ride.

*

The morning passes and he speaks approximately seven times, always and only when absolutely necessary. He seems more contrite than usual, but she is trying not to let that sway her.

Quick donor, indeed.

Too late, she thinks of things to say that could have cut him just as deeply. Things about his marriage, about his job. Things about his kids. The hell of it is, though, that old habits die hard, and she doesn't like who she is when she's sitting there trying to think of ways to hurt Elliot.

Not to mention the fact that, due to recent events, she is a staunch supporter of leaving their kids out of the argument.

_Their_ kids. His kids. And her kid.

At least now he can't pull that, "If you had kids, you'd understand" type of shit. Maybe that's why he's pulling all the other types.

*

He stops the car at a diner for a late lunch and she follows him quietly to a booth inside. If he had any sense of self-preservation, this order would have been be to-go, but she's tired from doing three interviews and she's tired from lack of sleep and she's tired just because. So she sits without complaint.

Nothing looks good and she orders hot tea and some saltines. Elliot wisely says nothing, but then again, does he really need to? His point is being made in the lean of his head, the slant of his brows. Someday she'll be better at ignoring him.

He wolfs down a mushroom burger while she debates in her head the merits of her own free will versus the hormonal coup d'etat happening in her body. This pregnancy thing has her perpetually on the verge of losing it, so when Elliot opens his mouth to say, "Liv," she stops him immediately.

"I don't want to talk about it," she states flatly, crumbling a cracker before dropping it into the empty mug. "Not right now. And not here."

He looks like he has more to say, but he sighs and reaches for the check. "Guess we'd better get going then," he says quietly. "You're going to be late."

Fuck. Her appointment.

"You really don't need to—" but he's up and headed for the register.

Sometimes she questions why he vigilantly defends his place in her life when it only seems to make both of them miserable.


	13. Poli, poli di umbuendo

13. Poli, poli di umbuendo by hollelujah

Author's Notes:

Slowly, slowly we will get there.

*  
Three hours later she is sitting at her desk, willing herself not to stare at the blurry, black-and-white image she has taped on her computer monitor. She has already memorized the lines and contours of the ultrasound, she took the image to the bathroom with her when she and Elliot got back from her appointment and it has been the longest she's gone without blinking, ever. It was also the longest time she'd ever spent in a bathroom without actually having to pee, which, considering she has a small person and a sac of amniotic fluid resting on her bladder, is impressive.

She's trying, really she is, to be as nonchalant as possible about this; happy endings have never really been her thing, and she refuses to let everyone watch her implode when it all falls apart. But the hell of it is, she's seen the baby, the over-sized head that blends into the body that weighs the same as two sugar packets from Starbucks, and she's heard the loud, fast-galloping heartbeat. That's _in_ me, she'd thought as the sound filled the exam room. In me.

Beside her, she'd felt Elliot staring down the ultrasound monitor like he was trying to decipher a code of Great Importance. She doesn't regret cutting ties with Kurt, but it would have been nice to have someone there who would have grinned and cried with her. It would have been normal. It would have been better than Elliot's cryptic silence.

If Elliot had looked out-of-place in the waiting room, he'd looked like a martian at the White House sitting in the chair by her exam table. She wasn't sure she wanted him there, especially since he hadn't even asked if she'd wanted him to wait in the lobby; the only privacy he'd given her was standing outside while she changed into the too-thin medical gown. His very presence was pushy, intrusive, and semi-sullen. But her partner's silence is better than the quiet of an empty room. She isn't alone.

"Are you the father?" Dr. Patel had asked, and as Elliot grimaced and introduced himself she thought, That's what you get for not staying in the waiting room. But he's a father of five, he knows where to sit and what to do and so he stayed well north of dangerous territory and became a statue in his chair, speaking only when her doctor asked her how her morning sickness was coming.

"Better," she'd answered.

Just as Elliot said, "The same."

Dr. Patel hadn't been sure of what to make of that, and neither had she.

It was an awkward ride back to work, although Elliot had smiled wanly at the image she'd clutched in her hand.

"Careful," he'd said, and she had imagined his voice was scratchy because he'd used it so sparingly since their incident that morning. "You'll wrinkle it."

And that had been it, that had been the extent of their interaction and Olivia cannot help but think how much that sucks.

"Is that the first picture of your tenant?" Munch asks teasingly as he catches sight of the image. "Or did you buy a Doppler machine?"

"Tenant," she smiles. "As of seventy-three days ago."

"Everything okay?"

Her smile this time is tight, she can feel it stretching her cheeks and wishes her facial muscles would relax so it wouldn't feel like her face was cracking with the stress of conveying unexpressed anxiety. "Everything's perfect."

*

Their afternoon is diligently spent making phone calls and catching up on paperwork, and it isn't until they hit the five o'clock clear-out in the squadroom that she realizes she can go home. With a sigh, she looks at her paperwork and decides to stay late; the city isn't paying her by the hour, but she'll sleep better if she feels like something work-related got accomplished today.

Elliot is still here as well, and she wonders if he's thinking the same thing, or if he's just avoiding his house.

Cragen pulls on his suitjacket and offers a "Night, all," before heading out, and she gives him a small wave and is prepared to return to her DD5s when Elliot clears his throat and all of a sudden they're looking at one another and she knows Something will be said.

"How's it coming," he asks easily, but there's something odd about his face, like someone asked for a caricature of casual and then stapled it to his forehead.

She shrugs. "Fine. I'm good for a little bit longer." She clears her throat. "What about—"

"Look, Olivia," he interrupts, and her words die in her throat. "I know that—look. I know that, sometimes, it can seem—I can come across… I…" he breaks off and sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands before resting his elbows on his desk.

She stares at him. "You know it wasn't like that," she says slowly. "Kurt was a nice guy. And I'm—I've wanted—I wouldn't. You know I would never… not for anything."

"I shouldn't have said what I did, earlier. I didn't mean to—I know that," he says roughly. "I know. I'm trying to apologize. And I know I'm—I know that I seem difficult, it's just…" He is staring at something beside her now and she thinks one of the reasons they're so fucked up is because he spends their conversations staring at the space around her like she's radiating something dangerous. "Anyway. I'm sorry for earlier."

How many times can she do this with him, she wonders. One step forward and three steps back.

One step forward…

"'Difficult' is one way to put it," she says, and it is the closest thing her hormones can give as a peace offering. "You want to tell me what's going on?" she asks, and her own voice reminds her of hostage negotiations, of maneuvering minefields and trip wires. His recent disposition makes her inclined to flinch in anticipation of his response.

There are no explosions in his response, but his brows are just a little too high up on his forehead when he answers, "Nothing. Work stuff," and starts to turn back to his computer.

"Elliot," she protests quietly. "How are things at home?"

She sees it then, sees the walls go up and the stiffening of his shoulders and the tensing in his wrists. The muscle in his jaw jumps and she thinks, kaboom.

"Great," he says brusquely, and it absolutely reeks of bullshit.

*

Every day brings a new something for her now, and she thinks she could get used to that. Today she saw a little girl shopping for groceries with her mother, sitting in the cart and playing with a box of Pop-Tarts. Olivia thinks she could get used to that, too.

The problem with the first pregnancy, and in this case what she strongly suspects will be her only pregnancy, is that everything she reads puts her paranoid at DefCon 5. Today she'd read an article about hyperemesis gravidarum, a pregnancy-related vomiting disease that causes malnutrition in mothers and unknown consequences in their unborn children. Suddenly the words 'unknown consequences' represented her worst fears, and she had a vision of a baby with four legs and no arms. Women over forty, she keeps thinking. What am I thinking?

But Dr. Patel has been insistent that everything is fine, and she chooses to cling to that. Especially today.

She sent Kurt an e-mail this morning containing two cryptic lines:

I'd like to meet with you soon. Hope all is well.

Then she'd struggled on how to end it – 'Sincerely'? 'Gratefully'? 'Knocked Up'? – before settling for her department signature. Very professional. Impersonal. Detached.

The headache she'd woken up with has gotten worse in the last hour, and Elliot is Not Helping. Someday she will write a book, she swears she will, and it will be titled, "What to Expect When You're Expecting: The Single-Mom-With-Overbearing-Work-Partner-with-Savior-Complex Model," and she'll give Elliot 15% of the profits just because of the abundance of material he has given her.

Fin saw her massaging her temples after lunch and offered her Ibuprofen for her headache.

Elliot seems to be taking greater pains to meet the department standards of polite behavior, albeit sometimes just barely, but he did not hide his disapproval. "She's pregnant, Fin; she can't take Ibuprofen."

"Why not?" Fin demanded.

"Because."

And then Elliot had looked at him blankly and Fin had waited for a more detailed answer until finally Olivia broke the Ignorant Man Silence. "They're still not sure exactly why," she said, and her tone felt bitchy. "But it closes off one of the baby's blood vessels if you take it after thirty-two weeks."

Fin blinked. "But you're—"

"Fourteen weeks. I know."

"Better safe than sorry," Elliot said smugly.

Two hours later and the tylenol Elliot had procured has done nothing for her. She is considering taking the rest of the afternoon for herself when she notices that her partner stops talking to Munch, mid-sentence, and stares at something behind her.

From the doorway, she hears a familiary voice tentatively call, "Olivia?" and she freezes.

Kurt.

*


	14. Meum cerebrum nocet

"My brain hurts."

*

In the quiet of the interrogation room, Kurt is channeling a little bit of Elliot Stabler and has not moved in almost two minutes; his face bears the same expression it bore when he'd held up the broken condom. She's almost positive that he's completely unaware of the hustle and bustle of the precinct outside. And/or her own presence.

"Kurt?" she prods.

He still doesn't move. But at least his eyes re-focus on her for the first time since he saw her stand up from her desk; she'd stalled on wearing maternity shirts for as long as possible, but it's summer in New York and she can't stand too much on her skin.

"So… you're having a baby, then."

"Yeah."

"Is…uh…." He clears his throat. "I guess you're saying it's mine."

Shit. This is not where she wanted the conversation to go. "You're the only person I've been with in the last…" Year, her mind helpfully supplied, but she's not advertising that. "…in awhile," she finishes awkwardly.

"I…" and then he groans and puts his head in his hands, and Olivia almost feels sorry for him. It's been an eventful day -- Hi, remember me? Well I'm having a baby and it's yours.

"Kurt... look, I know. It scares the hell out of me, too, but—"

He looks up. "But you're keeping it."

Olivia nods.

Kurt's face is composed and collected, so when he utters something profane and abruptly stands, the sound of his voice and the chair scraping back on the floor makes her wince. "Okay," he says, but it isn't quite to her. "Okay. And so, now what? You want child support? You want me to raise a kid with you? What do you want from me?"

She swallows and squares her shoulders. "I just thought you should know," she says calmly. Lately she's been doing this thing where her body decides it needs a good cry just when she wants it to get with the program and be a hard-ass, and she will not – will _not_ — turn this into a scene from a Southern Belle nightmare. She'll let a bored, glowering Elliot into the delivery room to cut the fucking umbilical cord before she cries in front of Kurt.

"If this is about money—"

"It's not about money," she says sharply. "It's about courtesy. I'm having a baby, and it's yours, and I don't think it would have been right to just not tell—"

"I really wish you hadn't," he says, and it's sad, this pleading, desperate tone he has. "I wish to fuck you had just left me in the dark."

"Kurt--"

"I want a paternity test," he interrupts. "If this is about money, I want a paternity test. I— _fuck_, Olivia!"

That's what got us here in the first place, she thinks darkly. "I don't want your goddamn money."

"So, what then? Do I get a kid on weekends and holidays?"

"No," she says, and it comes out closer to a growl. "Kurt, I'm going to be completely frank with you: I plan on raising this child alone. I'm not asking for money, I don't need your help, and I certainly don't need your permission. I'm just informing you—"

"Why?" he snaps, and of course _this_ is the prick who would bust a condom. "I haven't seen or heard from you in three months and you just, out of the blue—_fuck_."

She stands. "We're done here."

"What?"

"You call me if you feel the urge to help cover any expenses," she snaps. "But I don't need your money and I don't really give a fuck what you think. Other than that, you can go away with my blessing."

And he does.

*

Some things are better left alone.

The image of Kurt angrily demanding a paternity test keeps playing out on the edges of her mind. She sees it all happening over and over again, the scene in the interrogation room, Elliot's swift disappearance from the squadroom as soon as she sat at her desk, Fin's cold nod to the journalist as he left.

When she's alone in her bed, humming softly and caressing her belly, she wonders – truly questions – if she's done the right thing. If she can do this. Three days earlier she'd remembered to feed one of her plants and rushed to water it, only to discover it had long since withered. Her face felt like granite as she'd thrown it out and the last several days have been spent second-guessing her ability to keep things alive.

She's really and truly showing now at eighteen weeks, and she still feels like it's a fluke, like Someone Upstairs missed a spot-check on humanity and - tada! - now she's pregnant. She signs up for a Lamaze class for later in her third trimester and realizes, with mild horror, that she is almost halfway done with the whole incubation thing. One year from today, where will she be?

Michelle Wei, one of her old coworkers from Computer Crimes, started a registry for her and then insisted on accompanying Olivia to Target and Babies 'R Us on a manaical scanning spree.

"Ooooh!" she'd squealed when Olivia finally found a stroller and scanned the appropriate box. "That's perfect! Absolutely perfect!"

Olivia had been terrified. Absolutely terrified.

Casey has been there for her as much as a workaholic lawyer can be, and it's been nice for her to have a woman around who doesn't faint with delight at the sight of a onesie. Nice to have a friend who doesn't know anything about fundal height or hydatidiforms or Braxton Hicks.

Now the small room that held her TotalGym and various and sundry boxes has been cleared out; now all it holds is the box of her unborn child's un-assembled crib and an old rocking chair. There is a 150% female part of Olivia that longs for the room to be painted something other than the generic off-white of undecorated apartments. If it means maxing out her Visa, she will do this mom thing the right way.

But lately, the mom thing isn't the only thing she's been thinking about.

It's embarrassing, really, and she thinks she's figuring out why pregnant women may not be a complete and utter benefit to a mostly-male work environment. It's distracting, and she feels ridiculous and inappropriate and sick, but none of that really matters because something has happened to make her feel very non-maternal.

Olivia is horny.

The word makes her uncomfortable, it's crass and juvenile, but there's nothing else that comes to mind to describe the urges and drives that have suddenly re-asserted themselves – with a mighty vengeance – after a long period of dormancy. She feels full and feminine and glowing, albeit a little bulkier than normal, and if it wasn't for her belly, she's scared she'd pounce on anything in a pair of pants… anything viable. Anything male.

Unfortunately for her, her asshole partner is a male, and he is much, much more than simply viable.

Elliot Stabler is an attractive man, and she knows this. She has always known this. He's not going to be on the cover of Men's Vogue anytime soon, but there's more to him, he's all edges and angles. He's masculine, from his feet – and she does not allow herself to think about his feet anymore, for purposes of maintaining the mentality of a forty-year-old woman and not a fourteen-year-old groupie – to his shoulders to his widow's peak hairline. Masculine. Manly. Virile.

Her mind wanders again and she snaps back to attention. Damn the increased desk duty workload for her, anyway. It only gets her in trouble.

She is contemplating digging through her junk drawer for the long-forgotten box containing her vibrator when Fin and Elliot come back from their interviews and she loses her train of thought. Elliot greets her and she replies absently, feeling like an over-sexed housewife, a one-handed reader of paperback romance novels.

Housewife… and then her husband goes to work and Elliot the Electrician stops by, just to read the meter but, Oh, I'm sorry ma'am I didn't mean to interrupt your bath, I'll wait out here until you're decent.

No need, Housewife says, clutching his collar with wet fingers and pulling him down, down until his mouth—

Okay, seriously, she thinks to herself. Pull yourself together.

It's not like anything could happen anyway. Aside from the whole, Hey you're married and we work together so I shouldn't use you to scratch an itch, all she has to do is remember what happened when he really interrupted her bubble bath. Absolutely Nothing. And she's fine with that, because the non-pregnant part of her brain bitch-slaps the rest of her and sternly says "Off-Limits!" whenever his face shows up in her mind. But the rest of her doesn't care that he's scowling most of the time or married or just hard to get along with. The rest of her has lost its fucking mind.

Kurt has called her three times to ask her what she thinks he should do, and he sounds sincere. If he wasn't so damn annoying she'd call him back and have him at her apartment when she got home; it's not like he can knock her up again. But he _is_ annoying, and she doubts he'd want to hop in the sack with someone who feels less like a bombshell and more like a breeding ground.

Elliot drove her to another appointment three days earlier and she'd let him come in to see another ultrasound. It's an odd tension between them; he's not dancing through the streets to lead a parade in her honor, and he's still anal about this pregnancy to the point of insanity, but he's less of an asshole. And that's good enough for her. It's more than enough.

"Liv, hand me those notes on the Jeffery rape, will you?"

She jolts to attention at Elliot's request and begins to search through the stack by her keyboard when she gasps, "Oh!" and freezes.

His eyes snap to hers. "What's wrong?" he demands, and then he is moving around the desks, standing close enough to her that, if she wasn't so immensely distracted at the moment, she'd probably get herself in trouble. But those thoughts are on the very, very back burner now. "Are you okay?"

She nods quickly. "Yeah. Sorry. I think… I think I felt the baby move." With probing fingers, she presses on her abdomen for a moment before feeling a gentle, rapid fluttering. "There!"

Elliot looks lost, much more so than a father of five has any right to, but she cannot find it in herself to care. The baby moves again, and she hears herself laughing quietly. Chuckling to herself like a crazy woman.

Elliot straightens. "That's good," he mutters awkwardly.

"Do you want to feel it?" she asks, and she hopes her excitement won't discredit her co-workers' perception of her as a competent hard-ass. Elliot hesitates, and she grabs one of the limp hands hanging at his sides and pulls it to her. "Feel here," she demands. "Right there." He kneels beside her and presses his fingers gently against her swollen torso. The baby moves again and she looks at him expectantly. "Did you feel that?"

He nods. "Barely."

"That's because you're not pressing hard enough. Here," and she takes his hand and pushes his fingers more firmly against the spot. "Okay… maybe it's over—oh!"

Elliot smiles, and it's tiny but it reaches his eyes for the first time in what she's sure is months. And then all of a sudden, the world stops, and the baby is moving and Elliot is smiling at her and she's in a bubble of contentment. The center of her universe has re-located to her uterus, but she's sure, so sure, that it is acclimating itself to include the man who is staring at her with his hand on her stomach. "I feel it," he says softly, and she smiles back.

"What the hell, Elliot?" Fin asks as he comes out of Cragen's office with a new stack of paperwork.

"Baby moved," Elliot answers as he quickly stands up.

"You taking nightclasses at med school, now?"

Fin looks at her like she's about to go into labor and she grins. "It's okay. Do you want to feel it?"

He shakes his head. "I'm good."

Her laughter, when they hear it, surprises even her.

*

At nineteen weeks, Cragen gives her the okay to interview witnesses with Elliot and the temporary reprieve from desk duty feels like vacation.

"Don't do anything stupid," he cautions. "None of this chasing down a suspect crap."

"It's one interview."

"I know that. I'm just…. Don't do anything stupid."

Elliot opens the car door for her and she rolls her eyes, but other than that it feels comfortable, like an old pair of sweatpants or a down blanket. She's missed this for the last two weeks – the quiet hum of the car, the occasional static from the radio, Elliot's muttered expletives about Manhattanite pedestrians. The only thing that's different is she's having a hard time concentrating on work when Elliot Stabler has the nicest hands she's probably ever seen and they're wasted, utterly wasted, because they're wrapped around a steering wheel instead of being put to work doing more useful things. Like ripping off her shirt.

Stop that, she chides herself. Stop that right now. Unhealthy, unhealthy. Friend. This man is your friend and you are going to fuck it all up if you don't stop.

"Stop!" she says loudly, for much different reasons.

Elliot slams on the brakes at a yellow light and everyone behind him starts honking. "What? What's wrong?"

She points to the bakery to her left, and it's emitting smells that she can sense through the car window. She would sell her soul for a cupcake. "Do you mind?"

Now it's Elliot's turn to roll his eyes, but he obliges and seven minutes later they are on their way again. She holds the cupcake up to her face and inhales deeply.

"Ah."

"You'd better eat that," he says sourly, but he's smiling.

"Don't worry. It just smells so good," she inhales again. "I haven't eaten a cupcake in years."

He smiles again and, really, this is getting to be a habit of his and she wonders if he knows. Probably not.

With great care and anticipation, she unpeels the giant cupcake's wrapper, flicking bits of chocolate icing off the side and putting them in her mouth before raising the confection to her face and taking a bite. The icing and baked batter combine in a heady rush of culinary satisfaction, and she closes her eyes and moans.

When she opens her eyes, she turns and finds Elliot looking at her like she's crazy. Or venomous. "What?" she says defensively. "It's good."

"Are the sound effects really necessary?"

She nods. "It's all part of the experience."

He grimaces and she rolls her eyes again, but the rest of her cupcake is consumed in silence. She may be ungainly and shaped like a hippo, but Elliot's only a man and he looks uncomfortable with the concept of sitting within striking distance of a pregnant, cupcake-craving beast. And so keeps her moans to herself.

After a moment of moan-less, comfortable silence, Elliot clears his throat. "So... is this a pregnancy thing now, you and cupcakes?"

She frowns. "Yeah. Is that bad?"

"No," he says, and his smile is the kind he normally has now, the kind that makes her think of people getting screwed over. "No, it's not bad. It's just that... well, you've just never been one for sweets."

"Well, come on, Elliot. You've done the pregnancy thing before; right now I like a lot of things I've never really cared for."

"Oh yeah?"

"Of course."

"Like what?"

She huffs a breath and thinks, and every single item that comes to mind makes her hungry. "Cupcakes. Steak fajitas. Wendy's french fries. That italian sub from Arby's. Chicken salad with apples. Oh! Celery and salsa. Bananas and salsa." Elliot's face wrinkles with disgust and she chuckles. "I'm into all sorts of stuff now."

"I was with you up 'til the celery and salsa."

"Wuss," she snorts.

"Ugh," he cringes.

"Just as long as it's with salsa."

"Roadkill?"

Her stomach roils. "Careful. Don't make me sick."

"I'm just saying."

"Yeah, I bet. You're making me feel like a freak. Didn't Kathy get weird pregnancy cravings? Mayonnaise and peanut butter, stuff like that?"

He flinches, and it's barely perceptible but it's there and all of a sudden they aren't joking anymore. "Yeah, I guess she did."

And there it is: their time with each other these days is spent within blurry borders marked off by trip wires and landmines and she never knows when she crosses over into Forbidden Territory until his jaw jumps and he shuts up. She imagines he feels the same way, but she's not the one coiled too tight to function normally. At least, not with anger. But she can overcome her hormones and his stoic tolerance of the shit life hands him, she knows this. Especially now, when she's just consumed enough cupcake to make her feel like superwoman.

"El," she starts, and she doesn't miss the fact that his knuckles turn white as soon as he hears the change in her tone. "What's going--"

"Nothing," he says shortly. "Just let it go."

"Elliot--"

He turns to her then, and his eyes are pleading and angry and wounded and now she's the one who flinches. "Seriously. Leave it be."

She sighs. "You know I can't do that."

But words like 'can' and 'crave' and 'family' are constantly being redefined for her now, so when he looks away from her and grips the steering wheel even tighter, she finds that it is possible for her to turn away and watch the city pass in a grey ribbon outside her window.

*

At twenty weeks, she takes herself to a small Greek restaurant four blocks away from her apartment and orders herself a glass of sparkling cider and a large fattoush salad. And this is how she celebrates the halfway milestone of pregnancy.

Is this what life will be like? she wonders to herself. She's always been a fan of the familiar, so muted, downplayed celebrations have always seemed natural; she'd had two birthday parties as a child and neither had ended well. It was easier to celebrate with her mom alone, with two cupcakes and whatever soda she wanted. Her mom would sit across from her, sipping at her wine or nurturing a vodka tonic, asking questions like, Do you like your cupcake? Do you like your present? Did the teacher tell everyone that today's your birthday? Did the other kids sing to you?

Yes, ma'am, she lied once. Teachers didn't do things like that when you were in tenth grade.

There are too many traits she shares with her mother to be ignored. She's single, she's career-driven, she has a hard time trusting people. But lots of women are like that, and she wonders if motherhood will unearth some other, secret demon within her that will ruin this child's life. Maybe she'll wake up one day and realize that, uterus or no, she's just not cut out for this.

She stabs at her salad and wonders if, alcoholic or not, she can give this baby a better childhood than the one her mother gave to her.

Twenty minutes and two glasses of cider later, the lettuce has given her no answers. She pays for her meal and thinks that the downside of a one-woman celebration is that there's no one else around to make sure that the life of the party isn't walking pensively down a street by herself.

Happy twenty weeks, she thinks to herself as she climbs up the dimly lit steps to her apartment.

*


	15. Nolo contendere

15. Nolo contendere by hollelujah

Author's Notes:

I do not wish to contend.

*

One good thing about being pregnant, she reflects, is that she can spend large amounts of time in the restroom and no one really says anything. This especially comes in handy when Munch starts cooking a new conspiracy theory, when Fin gets pissy and cranky. Or when Kathy Stabler shows up to the precint to talk to her about Elliot.

Kathy enters the squadroom and Olivia snaps out of a trance in which she has been estimating her baby's length to be about that of a banana. Kathy says hi and Olivia says hi and then Kathy asks Olivia if they can talk and Olivia says, of course, of course, if you could just excuse me for a moment, and she ignores the blond woman's wide eyes that stare at her belly as she mutters an excuse about the call of nature to get the hell away from Elliot's wife. She and Kathy are not friends, dinner invites and lullabies for Eli be damned, and there are only so many things that her showing up here can mean.

They have done this before, she tells herself in the stall. Something at home implodes and Elliot gets pissed and fucked over and Kathy moves in with her mom and Olivia takes custody of Elliot like he's seven years old. And then she has to give him back after Kathy decides to get knocked up and sorry that she kicked him out.

How does Kathy do it? How many times can she release Elliot into her care?

Olivia will take care of him, she knows this -- she does not think she has it in her to _not_ take care of this man -- but she's not his fucking foster wife. Kathy needs to grow up and either serve him with papers for good or put up and shut up and get on with her life.

But maybe that's not what she needs, she tells herself sternly. Don't jump to conclusions. Stay calm. And maybe you should pee while you're already in here.

Kathy is nowhere to be found when Olivia returns, and she wonders if Elliot and Munch came back earlier than expected. Then her cell phone rings. "Kathy," she says shortly, after recognizing the number. "What's up?"

"Can you meet me outside?"

Olivia sighs and disconnects, absently wondering if she will need a cloak-and-dagger for this rendezvous. Baby or no baby, she thinks she needs to get laid by someone who has never, ever, ever been inside the city. Someone who has no clue as to the existence of the NYPD, sex crimes, Elliot Stabler or the crack in her bathroom door.

Kathy is outside on the sidewalk; her eyes, if it is possible, have gotten even bigger. They flicker back and forth between Olivia's face and swollen middle, and Olivia notices for the first time just how frail Kathy looks. Her thin arms are crossed over her chest and she huddles into her cardigan even though it's only September. "I need to talk to you. _We_ need to talk."

"Yeah, I figured. What's—"

"Can you go for a ride with me?" she asks quietly.

"Kathy, what is this about?"

"We need to talk," she says again.

"And we can't do that inside?"

The blond woman shakes her head decisively. "No, we can't."

Olivia sighs. She feels so fucking pregnant right now; her ankles are swollen and there is a stack of forms needing signatures and checkmarks and other departmental minutiae and Wei had called her wanting to know about a baby shower guestlist and she would sell her soul right now for anything dipped in salsa. But Kathy's eyes are about to pop out of her face, and Olivia's fucking curiosity gets the best of her. "Okay, fine. Where are we going?"

Two minutes later, she straps on her seatbelt as Kathy starts the car and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

They are twelve blocks away from the precinct when Kathy finally pulls aside and shuts off the car. She unbuckles her seatbelt and turns to Olivia.

Olivia waits some more.

"Okay," Kathy begins. "I know what you're thinking and— I'm just going to say some things, and I want you to listen to me."

Olivia nods. "Okay," she says slowly.

"Okay," Kathy repeats. "Here it goes: I know how these things work. You and Elliot have worked together for years now, and you're a team… and—and I know my husband. I _do_ know my husband—" her voice breaks, and she pauses to take a breath.

"Kathy—"

"Just listen to me." She takes another breath and stares at her hands. "He didn't tell me you were pregnant," she says softly. "He's never said a word."

Olivia stares at her. For once, she has absolutely no clue what to think.

Kathy cannot look away from her hands. "What the hell am I supposed to make of that, Olivia?"

Fuck if she knows, and she doesn't like where this is going. Swollen ankles or no swollen ankles, she is This Close to climbing out of the car and walking back to work. "Kathy, I don't think I--"

"I'm going to ask you this one time, and I want a straight answer from you. I have had enough of Elliot's bullshit and I need the truth, even if it isn't from him, I don't care anymore." And then her eyes are looking at her, blue and sharp and brittle, and Olivia almost flinches with embarrassment for her. This woman is frail and fragile and broken, and normally the compassion that wells up instinctively in Olivia's chest would not be tempered with extreme annoyance at Kathy's presumption. She braces herself with a steadying breath and Olivia rolls her eyes. This is not happening, she thinks. This is so, _so_ not happening.

"Olivia," Kathy says, and it sounds like the word chokes her. "How long have you been sleeping with my husband?"

Fuck, she thinks. Of course. Of _course_. "Kathy, look, I have no idea where you're getting this idea that--"

"'Where I'm _getting_ this?'" she repeats. "How about this: I call for Elliot and Fin tells me you're dating an editor and then I notice that my husband doesn't hear a word I say for weeks. Fin tells me you break up with that boyfriend and Elliot comes home late, smelling like a bar and telling me that he's late because you needed him to be there. _You_ needed him! Well, we need him too, Olivia. And he's never home anymore, just like before… before Eli. We never see him. And now you're pregnant. How far along are you?"

Her answer Will Not Help, so she tries to think of something diplomatic to say while making a mental note to kick Fin's chatty ass. She pulls out her best hostage negotiator voice. "Kathy, listen to me. Now, I've heard you out, and I understand that you're going through a lot and you're emotional, but I need you to know--"

"_How far along are you_?"

The whole fucking situation smacks of a soap opera, and Olivia is formulating a theory that Kathy spends too much time at home with Eli watching "As the World Turns" because really, this is ridiculous. "Twenty weeks," she finally answers. "Kurt, the guy – the editor – I was seeing. He's the father."

"Then why—"

"Just listen." Kathy eyes her doubtfully and Olivia sighs. "I'm not sleeping with Elliot. I've never slept with Elliot. I have no plans to sleep with Elliot. I don't know how I can make myself clearer than that."

Kathy's lips tremble and her cheeks are scarlet. She is going to cry, and Olivia starts praying she can keep it together because there is just too much estrogen in this car for anyone's good.

"How do I know you're not lying to me?" Kathy asks her in a low voice.

"You don't," Olivia answers simply. "And, to be honest, I don't really care. I've got bigger things to worry about right now than your marriage."

"He's never home anymore," she says again quietly. "But he's not at work when I call."

Olivia sighs. "Elliot _has_ been helping me out," she admits, and she ignores the flash in Kathy's eyes. "He's taken me to a couple of appointments."

"At night?"

She freezes. "No. Why?"

Kathy stops and shakes her head. "No. Never mind. It's—this is stupid. I'm being so stupid."

"It's okay," Olivia says, but she's sure it doesn't sound okay because her voice is monotone and she's staring straight ahead. She is ready for this to be done, over, finished and out of her face. Fuck Elliot, she thinks vehemently, and she's almost surprised at how passionately she means it. Where the hell is he spending the night, anyway? Not with her. And not with Kathy. And she doesn't care because right now his very existence is fucking up her life and her paperwork.

His wife is still trying to make something come of this, good or bad. "It just seems, sometimes, that--"

"I don't care," Olivia interrupts. "It's none of my business. Please take me back now."

After a moment of silence, Kathy twists in her seat and starts the car. As they weave through traffic, silent tears are running down Kathy's face and Olivia feels a curious mixture of righteous indignation, fury, and guilt. She hasn't slept with Elliot. She won't. And it's not like it's just her choice anyways – it's been a few months, but she's still pretty sure that legally having sex with somebody is a mutal, consensual thing, and Elliot's been either too worried about the baby or too much of an asshole to really see her for herself anymore.

They arrive at the precinct, and Olivia climbs out of the car as fast as her slightly-bulky stomach will let her, slamming the door and cutting off Kathy's, "Olivia, wait," before she storms inside.

Elliot is back at his desk, staring at something intently on his computer when he sees her. She feels like a galleon at full sail, large and angry and bearing down on whatever gets in her way, and Elliot's concerned, "Liv?" does nothing to calm or slow her down. Fuck off, she wants to yell at him, but instead she starts to head for the roof and half-way hopes that Kathy will park and follow her up there so Olivia can scream at her and finish this properly.

"Liv!" he calls, and she ignores him. It's irrational to be angry at him, completely irrational. He's done nothing wrong, he's had his moods and he's always been a little bit of a dick, but he's been such a help to her that she's begun to think she can't do this without him.

And there it is.

The roof is deserted, of course, and she gets three good paces out before Elliot slams  
through the door after her.

"What the hell is going on?" he demands loudly. "Are you alright?"

"NO," she yells, and she's not sure what makes her angrier: Kathy and her questions or Elliot's dickhead ability to make her depend on him. "NO, I am _not_ alright. Do you know where I've been for the last thirty minutes? Do you have any idea?" He shakes his head dumbly. "No? Well, I'll tell you. Your _wife_ has it in her head that you and I-- that you and I--" Elliot looks ashamed, and the fact that he isn't surprised makes her angrier. "That we're _fucking_ on the side!"

He flinches. "Olivia," he says roughly.

"No! You listen to me, Elliot. I am on your side, and I will have your back, but if your wife _ever_ pulls a stunt like that again, I'm gone. I'm out." And she can do that. She's pregnant and he's helping and has she mentioned that she's scared shitless because she's pregnant and he's helping? But she can do this alone. She can.

His face blanches and he puts his hands out in front of him like he's trying to talk down a gunman. "Listen to me. It won't happen again, I'll talk to her—"

"Son of a bitch!" she yells, to no one in particular. "Son of a _bitch_." She walks to the edge of the roof to breathe; it's not good for her to get upset. The baby, she thinks.  
The baby, the baby. Calm down.

Elliot comes up behind her, his footsteps crunch in the gravel and she thinks of brittle bones and seashells and she's so, so angry and she won't, she will _not_ blame her hormones for the fact that she wants him. Yes, she does want him, she knows that, she's known that, and that's part of the reason she's so pissed. She wants him and he's here and she can't stop remembering how he'd felt her baby kick with a beatific smile on his face.

Fuck Kathy, she thinks. I'm not that woman. I won't touch her stupid husband. I would never—

"Olivia," he says again, and it is strangled and raw and he's behind her. He's too close. He's much too close.

She doesn't turn because if she does, if she _does_, he'll be standing there, much too close, much too warm, and she'll do something that she'll blame on her hormones but it won't matter. It won't matter because all she can think about is the fact that he is here and she can feel his breath in her hair and his body heat behind her and that he is too, too close.

Too close—

And then there is no space between his hands and her arms, he's cupping her shoulders gently, flexing his fingers before running them down her arms slowly, trying. Testing. She shudders and swallows back a moan. Danger, her brain is screaming. Unhealthy. Unhealthy.

His hands disappear for a fraction of a second and she holds perfectly, utterly still, even when they re-appear at her waist and slide towards the front of her, towards the bulge in her torso that has become the center of the universe. He is touching her everywhere now, slowly but surely, he is standing with his body pressed gently against her back as his hands move to cup her belly, and she is hot and cold and her heart has stuttered several times and it's her hormones, she keeps thinking. Hormones, hormones, hormones.

She has not moved since he first touched her arms, and they hang awkwardly at her side as he stands there, enveloping her. His hands hold her torso, hesitantly at first but hell, she cannot find anything within her to stop him or to want to stop him, and he learns this because she can feel it the moment his hands relax.

Hormones, she thinks. Don't read into this. It's just a hug. It's a hug with different dynamics, but a hug all the same. Don't do this. Unhealthy, unhealthy.

She can hear her brain, of course she can, but her brain hasn't been doing much for her recently, and it certainly hasn't provided her an extra pair of arms that fit around her and stroke her abdomen. And those arms belong to Elliot and she wants him here, right here. She'll figure out the rest later.

Slowly, slowly she moves her arms and places her hands over his, and she can hear him shakily inhale before he contracts his arms, just slightly. This is weird, she tries to tell herself. But it's not, it feels fine, it feels more than fine and she closes her eyes for a moment and just lets herself feel this, his arms and his breath and his body mingled in with the smell of the city and the sounds of traffic that echo from below.

She is still trying to slow her pulse down when her phone rings in her pocket; they both start and Elliot drops his hands and meets her eyes as she answers, "Benson." Her voice sounds like it hasn't been used in years.

"It's Fin. You with Elliot?"

Um. "Yeah. Why?"

"His phones have been ringing non-stop so I answered. He needs to call Kathy back ASAP."

Olivia sighs. "Perfection is transitory, Libby," Serena would say as the amber liquid sloshed from the bottle into her tumbler. "That's why you hear about perfect moments, not perfect hours, days, weeks or months… you might get a good minute or so, but sooner or later, something fucks it up. That's life."

"Liv? You there?"

She clears her throat. "Yeah. Sorry. I'll let him know."

She can feel his gaze on her as she disconnects, and she does not need to be married to him for twenty years to know that somewhere in his head there is a conversation brewing that she cannot be a part of.

"We get a call?" he asks quietly. His hands are on his own hips now, and she tenses instinctively at how tight his shoulders are.

"You did," she answers. "Kathy's been trying to get a hold of you."

He nods quickly. "I'll call her back.... I think we need to talk."

The 'we' he is referring to is not him and Kathy, and she knows this, but she shouldn't know this, she can't know this. She's pregnant and he's married and they work together and sometimes they're even good friends and anything beyond that is a Bad Idea.

"Go ahead. I'm going to stay here for a couple minutes."

"Liv—"

"Go call your wife, Elliot." And then she turns back around and stares at the city. His footsteps fade and eventually disappear, and all her brain will hold is the hope that her baby doesn't ever learn the difference between four hands and two, because Elliot's hands always end up death-gripping steering wheels, calling his wife or occasionally breaking something vital inside of Olivia.

*


	16. Sciri facias

To cause one to know.

*

There is an e-mail from Kathy Stabler in her inbox when she checks it after returning to her desk, and she hits 'delete' without reading it. She has a good idea as to what it says anyway, and she can't find it within herself to care enough about Kathy's feelings to placate her with assurances of forgiveness.

Elliot Will Not look at her, and her face feels brittle and old as she realizes that Stabler Catholic guilt is attacking her from all sides.

*

"Which one?" Casey asks impatiently, holding the two paint samples side by side in front of her. "Sea Foam or Ocean Breeze?"

Olivia frowns. "They're the same color. They're blue."

"No, they're not, and you sound like Elliot. Look closer—see, this one has more green in it."

She sighs. "Okay. Whatever. What do you think?"

Casey shakes her head. "It's not _my_ kid's room. Just pick the one you like best."

This is what they do now – instead of bar-hopping and storming the singles scene, they're sitting in a crowded dining room during the lunch rush, mulling over the consequences of Sea Foam versus Ocean Breeze. Blue versus blue, Olivia doesn't care, she just wants the damn walls to look like they belong to a baby sanctuary and not a social security office. "Ocean Breeze," she says reluctantly. "But only because Sea Foam makes me think of dead jellyfish."

Casey smiles triumphantly. "Good choice. It's going to look great." She stabs a cherry tomato and shoves it into her mouth. "And you'd better have the damn paint ready by the time I get there. I'm not hauling my ass to the store on Saturday morning if you change your mind." She chews thoughtfully and checks her watch. "Twenty minutes," she announces. "So, this paint party – is it just us?"

Olivia's tea is still cooling, and she folds her arms on the table and nods. "Uh, yeah. I thought we could finish it in one day."

"We can. I just thought Elliot would be helping."

Um. "Elliot?"

She smirks. "I've gotten the impression he's taken on the role of surrogate baby daddy. He's still taking you to your appointments, right?"

"Uh, yeah. But I don't think—I didn't ask him about painting."

Casey frowns. "Why not? What else has he got going on this weekend? A Honey-Do list?" At Olivia's grimace she smiles. "C'mon, it's not like he's got anything else going on. Besides, he'll probably want to whine the whole time about pregnant women and paint fumes."

The muscles in Olivia's face are trying to smile, really they are, but it must be a poor imitation because Casey looks up from salad and freezes.

"What's wrong?" she asks immediately, and dammit if Olivia doesn't miss the days when the slightest sigh wouldn't elicit a bomb-squad reaction from her colleagues.

"Nothing," she answers quickly.

"Is it the baby?" Casey asks.

"No, Casey—"

"Kurt?"

"No—"

"Is it Elliot?"

"Casey—"

"Okay, I'm not trying to pry. But if you two start going at each other's throats again, let me know. I don't plan on getting into a pissing contest over it, but he shouldn't be able to hog all of the boring pregnancy stuff."

Olivia blinks. "Excuse me?"

Casey looks at her like she's an imbecile and stabs an unladylike amount of lettuce onto her fork. "Elliot. You know he's relieved me of my chauffeur duties, right? He told me he'd call if he couldn't take you to your appointments." She attacks a cucumber before she realizes Olivia is still silent and examines her closely. "_Did_ you know that?"

"No," Olivia answers dumbly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Casey shrugs. "I'm telling you now, I don't know. It never came up, and you seemed fine. Part of me thought it was your idea."

"No," she protests. "It was not. I asked you to help for a reason… I just thought you were busy, so…"

"I am busy," Casey mutters around a mouthful of salad. "I'm always busy. But I want to be there for _something_. You've got a lot on you right now. I can still help."

"Thank you. I really—" She clears her throat. "Thank you. I'm sorry about Elliot."

The ADA shrugs. "No problem. So are you going to tell me what's going on with him? Or do you want me to make wild, unfounded assumptions from the few details I already have?"

"Casey," Olivia says warningly. "Don't. Everything's fine. Just… eat."

The remainder of their meal is silent.

*


	17. Solitudinem fecerunt, pacem appelunt

"They made a desert and called it peace." - Tacitus

*

By the time she gets back to work, her body is still humming with anger and she likes that. At least fury is productive and doesn't make her stare inappropriately at her partner. Her partner who is now sitting with his back to her, unaware of the fact that she knows exactly how much of a controlling dick he has been.

"I need to speak to you."

Elliot's head snaps up and he looks at her for the first time in awhile. He does that, she realizes. Something bothers him and so he just stops looking at it. Who would have thought Elliot Stabler had avoidant tendencies?

"About…?" he asks.

"I need to speak to you _privately_," she specifies quietly, and Fin makes a low whistle that, fortunately for him, she ignores.

He stands up then and begins to follow her, and his face is wary. Good, she thinks. It's no fun taking someone completely off-guard.

The locker room is empty; it's the middle of the afternoon and people are napping at their desks, so she gives him exactly enough time to come through the door and past a row of lockers behind her before she starts.

"What is this—"

"You've been driving me to all my appointments," she states sharply.

"And?"

"Why?"

He sighs and scrubs his face with his hand. "Casey," he mutters.

The fact that he doesn't deny his interference makes her heart thump faster in her chest. She's had this perverse urge to scream at him ever since he left her on the roof, and his overbearing attitude is just the opportunity she's been needing. "Yes, 'Casey,'" she says acidly. "I had lunch with her today. Did you really think I'd never hear about this?"

He is too busy pinching the bridge of his nose to answer her, and this only irritates her more.

"Elliot," she snaps, and the bitchiness of it pleases her. "Answer me."

"I don't need to justify my actions to you," he says, and it comes out like a growl.

"The hell you don't!"

"Olivia—"

"_Why_ did you tell Casey to back off?"

"Olivia—"

"Answer the question, Elliot!"

He stares at her with his hands on his hips, and for a moment she thinks he's going to dart out the door. If you run, she thinks darkly, you'd better run fast. She has a service weapon in the locker behind her.

"Casey—she's never done this before," he says suddenly, and she can see the self-righteousness coming off of him in waves and really, why is she even surprised? Elliot Stabler, patron saint of anything that is Not His Fucking Business, strikes again.

"It's a ride to my appointments, Elliot. I'm not asking her to coordinate a fucking birthplan."

He rolls his eyes. "I'm not saying—look, she doesn't know about any of this stuff. She doesn't know about the risks or the hormones or anything. She's a single woman who doesn't have any kids, and I didn't really think she was the best person for you to—"

"And you thought this was _your_ decision?" she asks angrily. "I choose someone to help me out and you get some fucked-up veto privileges just because we work together?"

"Liv, listen to me—"

"Listen to _yourself_," she snaps. "You're a forty-seven year old man who's married with five kids and yet somehow still finds the time to hover over me to tell me what he thinks about every damn choice I make! Yeah, Elliot, I get that Casey is alone and not a mother or a wife or the PTA president. She's not _Kathy_. But guess what? I'm not either, and—"

"I know that," he says roughly.

"Has it ever occurred to you that maybe _this_ is why your wife thinks—"

Elliot's eyes are sharp. "Shut up," he commands, and his voice whips across the space between them as she stares at him and flinches at what she sees in his eyes. Something inside of Elliot Stabler is ripping open right in front of her, and he's breathing like he's just run up several flights of stairs and in her periphery she sees that his hands are clenched at his sides. His jaw clenches and unclenches, and he stares at her with blue, blue eyes and he's moving so close that it feels like a dare to blink. She doesn't.

"Elliot—" she says quietly.

"I know you're not Kathy," he interrupts, and his voice is low. It seems to be coming from somewhere in his chest. "And I know it's not officially my business. But everything I've done, every decision that's been made has been for your own good, and for the baby." His jaw clenches and he's still moving closer. "I know about this stuff, I've got five kids. Casey doesn't know anything about this, and she doesn't know _you_."

"Elliot," she says again, but there's not as much fire behind it and he ignores her. She should be angry right now, furious, but it's oozing out of her. Hello baby, goodbye brain, she thinks to herself in a decidedly pissy voice. Maybe when _I_ have five kids I'll be able to think for myself. But her brain isn't calling the shots here, because she isn't saying any of this, she isn't even really dwelling on it. She'll get angry later, she decides, and snaps back to the present.

"I know you," he continues, and he moves closer again and her brain flinches but her body is humming like it's touching a live wire. "I know this. I can help you." And his words are similar to what Casey had said at lunch, but what she feels now is not simple gratitude. His presumption, the condescension that forty years of feminism is making her recognize, is making her dizzy with rage. She's angry at the fact that he's coming at her right now, like she's some young, doe-eyed woman of compromised reputation who will run at the first sign of aggression. He's approaching her like she's fragile, like she'll fall apart and float away if he breathes too heavily.

She can feel his heat and she's still staring him down and neither of them have blinked and it's too late to do anything about it when her eyes water from air exposure and the wetness spills over onto her face. She's not crying. "I'm not crying," she affirms huskily.

His own eyes seem perfectly dry, maybe just a little glassy, and she briefly wonders if hard-asses like Elliot eventually lose their tearducts and grow extra balls instead. He still doesn't blink, but he comes even closer, and his breath fans her cheeks and her brain is setting off every alarm at its disposal; bells and warning lights and sirens are creating a cacophony of warning in her head. Stop this, it screams. Stop this _now_.

She gasps as his hands come up, as his warm fingers curve to fit the shape of her belly, and the fluttering inside her stomach has nothing at all to do with the baby. Yes, her body is vibrating like a tuning fork, and it's been too long, it's been never since anyone has touched her like this, with the no blinking and the holding and the gentle flexing of his fingers against the globular protrusion of her abdomen. Her heart pounds in her chest and her lungs can't get quite enough air to function properly, and it doesn't help that she can inhale only a small, sharp gasp when her back meets something cold and she realizes he's backed her against one of the lockers.

"I know you," he says again, and it washes over her face in a wave of peppermint gum and coffee.

This is painful, this is sick, this is unhealthy, she screams inwardly as her hands cover his. She can feel the scars on his knuckles and the chill of his wedding band and it reminds her all over again that this isn't Just Somebody, that this is Elliot and his body is bleeding warmth and desperation and something else, something dark all over her. She closes her eys and flexes her own fingers, pressing his palms against her, feeling his heat.

And then everything happens too fast, because he mutters something that she knows for a fact is blasphemous and his lips crash onto hers so hard that her head bangs against the locker and the frantic, muttered apology against her lips makes her forget everything she's ever learned about boundaries and professional codes of conduct and traditional values. She gasps and he is in, he is behind her lips and all she can hear is the thud of her pulse and the slick sounds of two mouths moving against one another and the moaning that she's sure is coming from both of them. This is fireworks, this is the 1812 Overture, this is a sledgehammer and she can't think, she needs some space.

Abort! Abort! her brain is screaming.

She doesn't want to, fuck she does _not_ want to, but she starts to pull away and he growls and then fuck it all because she's back, and his arms aren't around her but, even better, they're pulling open the buttons at the top of her shirt, his fingers are searching and finding and kneading her breasts and they're so full that it's painful, but the pain and the pleasure crash into each other and all she can think is that if he stops now, if she stops now, she will scream, but if he doesn't she will scream anyway and she's relishing this, the clash of lips and tongue and teeth and the sound of him against her and already she is wondering how he's going to manage to fuck a woman who's five months pregnant while she's standing against a row of lockers.

Her hands move down, down to the rest of the buttons on her shirt and she wrenches it open and Elliot finally manages to open the front of her ugly maternity bra and he gasps against her and she can feel a predatory grin stretch over her face. She hears her name, over and over and over and all she can do is move against him, feeling his hardness and her wetness and holy hell if she shifts the right way she'll be coming, she'll be coming and he hasn't even touched—

One of his hands moves down to cup her through her pants and she cannot think, she cannot breathe, the only thing she can manage is a sharp gasp as she presses herself into him and exhales with triumph. Right there, she would say if her mouth wasn't so busy. Right _there_.

"Oh," she moans when he lets her up for air and moves to her neck. He is feverishly warm and his stubble is rough, painful against her throat. "Elliot—"

"Don't say stop," he rasps against her neck. "Don't you dare, if you say it I swear—"

She gasps again and clutches at his head, and she cannot remember wanting someone inside of her this much when his phone rings and his hands freeze and suddenly they are still.

He pulls his hand out from between her legs and grabs the phone from his pocket, "Fuck," he spits, but he presses 'Accept' and takes a deep breath. "Stabler."

It is Kathy, and the volume on the phone allows Olivia to hear everything.

"It's me," she says quickly. "Do you have a second?"

Elliot exhales forcefully and leans against the locker behind Olivia with his hand. "Sure, a second. What's up."

"Karen and Tom will be here around 7:00 – I thought that might give you enough time to get here and cleaned up – but I just realized that we're completely out of wine. Could you stop for some on your way home?"

He sighs again, and Olivia's impatience for him to get off the phone is quickly overridden by Kathy's voice in her head. "How long have you been sleeping with my husband?" she had asked, not two weeks ago, and Olivia had gotten up on her high horse and now look what's happening. Elliot's got one hand on the phone with his wife and the other is blocking her in, his arm on one side and his leg on the other and all she can think about is hurling the phone against the wall and getting this show on the road.

But she's not a monster. And she remembers the look on Kathy's face when she asked and it makes her cold all over.

She realizes with a jolt that she's still cupping the back of his head with her hand, and removes it quickly and begins to fumble with her bra. Stupid, her brain berates her. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Unhealthy. You are stupid and unhealthy. Stupid. And Elliot's stupid, too, because he ripped your fucking bra open and now it's broken. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He is still on the phone, answering Kathy's questions in monosyllables, when he sees her buttoning up her shirt and he freezes. No, he mouths silently, and his eyes are burning. Wait.

She shakes her head quickly. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Pregnancy has made her horny, and she can feel her nipples tighten just thinking about what they'd been preparing to do. Elliot, inside of her. Elliot's hands, not on a steering wheel and certainly not on that fucking phone, but caressing her, weighing her breasts and stroking her stomach and grinding against her until—

Horny, but not stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She is on the third button when Elliot cuts Kathy off. "Kath, I need—okay, right. I will. I need to go." And he disconnects.

Her chest is still heaving as he scrutinizes her, and she looks him in the eye and feels for the fourth button on her shirt.

"What are you doing?" he asks quietly.

"What does it look like? I'm going downstairs," she mutters as she fumbles with the fifth.

"Olivia—"

If he says her name one more fucking time… "What?" she snaps. "Were you wanting to get to third base before your wife calls back?" He flinches, and she knows it was a cheap shot but this cannot happen and why is _she_, the hormone-riddled single woman, the one who is saying no? His eyes darken and she sighs and looks down. Fuck these buttons, anyway. "Look, I'm sorry. This isn't your fault. I just… we both know that this can't happen."

There is a moment of silence, and the words This Can't Happen are suspended in mid-air between them. He scowls at her chin for a moment before meeting her eyes with a smirk.

His hand moves to her arm, his thumb moves up and down and caresses the fabric of her sleeve. "This?"

"Elliot."

"It's your arm," he states dryly. "People touch each others' arms all the time."

She sighs. "Elliot."

He is moving closer again, and her brain remains adamantly opposed to what the rest of her body is allowing. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

His hands move again, to her shoulders. "Bumping shoulders," he says quietly, and it's not soothing or smooth but this is hypnotic and she is still, her eyes are wide and she is staring at him. Mongoose, meet Cobra. "You work in Manhattan. You walk on the sidewalks," his mouth twitches, but his eyes are still burning and she cannot look or move away. "How many people have touched your shoulders?"

And then his fingers flex there, squeezing gently before moving across the slant of her collarbones, slowly and lightly, and she can feel the callouses on his finger tips as they skim the sensitive skin at the base of her throat. His hands cup her neck and she begins to breathe even faster. "Doctors check your neck all the time," he states matter-of-factly, and his voice is gravel and rust.

"Elliot," she says again, but it comes out on a breath and has nothing of its intended effect. Two hours ago she wanted his ass in a sling; now she wants it in her hands and the change in situations is dizzying in its evolution.

His face is very, very close now, close enough to where the slant of his eyebrows shadows his eyes and she can count the eyelashes underneath and see the flecks of gold in his irises. His mouth is a fraction, a breath away, and if she moves even an infinitesmal bit they will be touching again. "Your mouth," he breathes. "Other people touch your mouth. Other people have kissed you." She closes her eyes against the onslaught. Where is the Her that can put him into a locker?

Right with the Her that wants to put him there, her libido supplies. On vacation. You're not doing anything wrong. He wants you. Take it. Take it before he changes his mind.

No, no, no, she thinks. Not like this.

"Other people have kissed you," he says again darkly. "I know that. I've seen it—you let Kurt kiss you."

She exhales shakily. "Elliot."

"I know I'm not the first," he says wryly, and there is something desperate in his tone that is making her dizzy. "And I know I won't be the last. I know that. But let me be someone." And normally this would be a turn-off but she is quickly approaching where they left off before and she doesn't care what he thinks about her pre-baby sexual appetites or the men who used to satisfy them. Let me be someone, he whispers against her mouth.

He is gentle this time, more than she wants or deserves, and she closes her eyes and gives her brain the finger. If the first kiss was an attack, then this one is a negotiation. Let me be someone, it whispers, and her heart doesn't quite melt but it softens, just the tiniest bit.

Kathy, her brain whispers to her as a parting shot. Remember Kathy?

No, the rest of her says dismissively. If he doesn't, then you don't have to, either.

And that's enough.

He is still moving slowly against her mouth, testing, trying and she has had enough of caution because that's all they live with. Caution lights, caution tape, warnings, alarms and admonitions have had their way long enough and she's so, so tired of resisting this. With a moan, she surrenders and moves back to the buttons on her shirt, but he's already there and so she winds her arms around him, underneath his shoulders and digs her fingernails into his back because he is not fucking close enough.

And then he is back, he groans and she is covered with his body and can just barely manage to reach in between them and he is hard, so hard and she feels an adolescent thrill race through her. This is more than just heady quickie sex, this is Elliot and Elliot's hardness and Elliot's hands and it's not something she's been preparing herself for and that must explain the dizzy feeling that she has been unable to shake since he first started breathing near her face.

He stiffens as she strokes him and his hands are pulling her into him, as close as her belly will allow. Really, she thinks between explosions in her brain, this will not work.

But he has other ideas and suddenly he is behind her, and her shirt is open and his palm is rough against her swollen nipple as his other hand snakes down, down past her stomach and into her pants and she is just coherent enough to slide the waistband down past her hips. His fingers find her and she is panting like a jungle cat in heat, and she cannot believe that this is it, that this is where it is happening, that Elliot is going to take her from behind in a precinct locker room, shielded only from the doorway by a row of ugly, department-issue cubbies.

"You still with me?" he gasps against her neck, pulling her shirt down over her arms.

"Yes," she grunts, and it is the least sexy sound she's ever made but he shudders against her.

"Bend," he pants. "Bend over."

"The baby—"

"It's safe, I promise," and he takes a mouthful of her neck and his breath is hot against her skin and she cannot take it anymore, she's throbbing and humming and she bends slightly, just enough, she places her hands on the locker and the metal is obnoxiously cold. He is still touching her, and she's relieved, because she cannot stand this, it's too impersonal without his hands.

One hand disappears from her breast for a moment and the noise she makes is disgruntled, but his pants were still on and fuck, she should have thought of that. And then suddenly he is at her entrance, she can feel him, and there is no condom and maybe that's stupid, but this is Elliot and she's already in the family way, and it's been so long, it's been years and years since she's felt a man without any sort of barrier, and as he begins to push into her she realizes how appropriate that is and loses her breath.

He slides into her with a strangled, "Livia," and then he is filling every inch of her, every fucking inch of her and she still cannot breathe, and he moves, his thrusts are deep and fast and she cannot believe that this is her, that she is here and that he is in her. She rests her cheek against the chill of the locker and doesn't even try to stifle the keening sound she makes as he moves inside of her. His shirt and tie are still in tact, and there is crisp linen and soft silk that is tickling the bottom of her back and she moves against him greedily.

"Ungh," is the only response she gets, but he is pumping harder and faster and maybe it's the hormones but this man should write a manual on this, and then she sees him, not as he is at the moment but in her mind's eye, on their first case and hugging his kids and glowering when Kathy left and screaming at her about Gitano and following her to New Jersey and avoiding her when Kathy came back and grabbing her after Eli was born and waking her up in her tub and staring at her from across his desk and now, now he is in her, shushing her as she strains against him but it doesn't matter, because all of the Elliots blend together into the one that is behind her and inside her and she shatters so violently that it takes her awhile to realize that she is grunting loudly into his palm as it covers her mouth, and he is still pumping and she can hear her name on his every breath and he releases her mouth and she moans as he grabs her hips and with a thrust, and a thrust, and a thrust that makes a strangled yell come out of her throat, he comes inside of her.

He stills and leans his head on her shoulder, panting and sweaty, and wraps her arms around her. "You okay?" he asks against her neck.

She nods. She's okay, but her body is nowhere close to sated; she'd expected to feel relief, like a lid had been taken off of a pressure cooker, and there is a fluid feeling in her limbs that is lazily pleasant, but something is off because she feels like she can knock him to the floor and do ten more rounds.

But she's not in bed in her apartment, she's standing in the middle of a locker room with no shirt and her pants around her knees, and the animalistic urges she'd given into fade quickly as she recalls where they are.

Elliot's arms are still around her and he's nuzzling her neck like they're in a fucking honeymoon suite. She shifts. "I need to get cleaned up," she explains as he looks at her questioningly.

She goes back to the showers and splashes cold water on her wherever it can help, cringing at the rawness between her legs. Next time she'll tell him to be more gentle.

Next time.

Next time?

You're still angry at him, she tells herself. You'll still kick his ass. Maybe not until after the baby's born, but you'll do it. Arrogant prick.

Moments later, the sound of him clearing his throat makes her spin around, and he's standing behind her with nothing to show from their encounter except a tie that is slightly askew. He holds something out to her with a small smile.

"I grabbed the extra one from your locker," he explains as she takes the bra from his hand. "Sorry about that."

"Thanks," she mutters and takes the undergarment, shedding her shirt again to quickly put it on. Elliot respectfully averts his eyes as she does and she's glad. This is awkward enough without him staring at her.

He clears his throat again. "Should we talk—"

"No," she says quickly. His eyes tighten and she rushes to explain. "Let's just… not right now.

"'Not right now?'" he asks, and his face hardens.

"It is what it is, Elliot. We don't need to label it."

"'Label it,'" he says dully.

"Not now," she says quickly. "Not with all of this," and she gestures to her stomach. "And you, with Kathy… no. We don't need to do this now."

"Liv—"

"Just give it a couple of days," she says, and fuck, she hopes that there's no desperation in her voice. She cannot think, she cannot do this if she cannot think, and she probably cannot do this anyway, so fuck it all. "We'll talk about it later."

He is not happy. In fact, he looks angry, but angry is better than sad and she's happy that something she's suspected has been confirmed. Alpha Males are easier to deal with than lovesick men; she'll take him pissed six ways to Sunday before she'll take him while he's in a sentimental funk.

But may the gods forbid Elliot Stabler ever be labeled a sentimental man. He stares at her for a brief moment, and it's the look she gets when she crashes through a trip-wire and gets too personal. Then, with a tight nod, he turns and leaves the room.

We'll talk about it on Monday, she tells herself. I just need time to think. Think. Think, think, think. What the hell just happened?

I'm angry, she thinks as she buttons up her shirt. I was angry because of what Casey told me, and I needed to talk to him, and then he argued with me, and then we were here. And then—

"Oh!" she gasps, and her hand drops to her belly. "Ahh…"

Cramping, painful and concentrated, takes over her abdomen, and she sinks onto a bench and holds her stomach. Ow ow ow ow ow, she thinks, and she's not a wuss but _fuck_. And then she remembers her recent activities and freezes.

Her mind races, trying to recall everything she's ever read about sex during pregnancy, but of _course_ she hasn't read that much, it's not like she's expected to actually do this. But this—another cramp hits her and she hisses in pain—this can't be normal. It hurts too much. Hospital, she thinks frantically. I've hurt my baby. I need a hospital.

"Elliot?" she calls, but her voice comes out in a shaky whisper. Pull it together, she thinks to herself through the pain. Volume. Noise. I need a hospital. I've hurt my baby.

"Elliot!" she screams. "Elliot!"

Her voice echoes in the empty room as her vision goes fuzzy, and the only thing she feels is the chill of metal behind her, the phantom warmth of Elliot's hands on her belly, and dark, overwhelming guilt.

*


	18. Omnia mutantur, nihil interit

Everything changes, nothing perishes.

*

Someone is telling her to wake up.

With a groan, Olivia opens her eyes and immediately wishes she hadn't.

"Alright, I think she's awake," someone says loudly. "Ma'am, can you hear me? Blink if you can hear me."

She blinks.

The paramedic hovering over her smiles briefly and turns to someone behind him. "She's awake."

Fantastic.

"Your partner found you passed out on the floor," Loud Paramedic explains. "We're going to get you to a hospital."

She shakes her head and tries to talk, but whatever's on her face – an oxygen mask, she discovers – makes it difficult.

"Don't try to talk," the paramedic commands. "Just breathe."

The baby? she wants to ask. She stares at the face above her and attempts communicating telepathically, but apparently this ass only communicates at one decibel level. Out of habit, she tries to lift her hand to touch her stomach, but she can't move her arms. My baby, she thinks again. What's happened to my baby?

"Heartrate's up," someone else says quickly. "Talk to her."

"Detective," Loud says again. "We need you to stay calm and breathe. Can you do that? Just breathe, in and out."

Her chest constricts. No one is talking about the baby. She looks at the paramedic frantically, but he clearly is not well-versed in Panicked Looks of Expectant Mothers. She can feel her pulse quicken and she desperately tries to look down at her stomach, but the movement overwhelms her with dizziness and her head falls back onto the stretcher.

"Breathe, Detective," Loud repeats.

She glares at him. I will breathe, you ignorant fuck, just as soon as you tell me what the hell's going on.

"Move," someone snarls, and all of a sudden Elliot appears, and he's scowling and pissy but he's there and surely he'll know what she needs to hear.

"Wait," Loud is not happy. "You can't—"

"Shut up," Elliot snaps.

And Elliot's eyes are usually hard, they're granite and steel and other things that make her think of immovable objects and ancient Roman walls. But he doesn't look immovable now, he's staring at her face and he's got the same look on his face that he has whenever he holds Eli, and she can live with that, at least until she can get off of this damn stretcher. Why can't he always look so damn accommodating?

"Liv? Can you hear me?" She nods. He's speaking too loud, too, but it's Elliot and there's something in the timbre of his voice and his sweaty palm on the crown of her head that might help to slow down the quick, persistent skipping of her heart. "Okay, Liv, listen to me, you blacked out for a little bit and we're taking you down to Presbyterian to make sure everything's good, alright?"

She nods again, but he's just repeating what the paramedic said and no one's telling her anything and shit, shit, shit she's breathing too fast and her eyes feel like they're bulging from her head. "Baby," she croaks, and he seems to understand.

"They're checking everything," he promises, but his face is tight. "We'll know soon."

Loud and his partner, who has no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever, both look disgruntled. "Sir," Loud protests. "I need you to move back to your seat."

"You wanted her calm, I'm calming her," Elliot bites out. "Back off."

"Sir—"

Elliot ignores him, but moves to the head of the stretcher and lets Loud do whatever it is he was doing before she opened her eyes. She feels her partner's thumb stroking her temple, and his voice is quiet above her. "Alright, Liv. Just breathe. We'll be there real soon."

Baby, she thinks. What's happening to my baby?

"She's tachy—Detective, you need to move _now_."

"_Breathe_, Liv."

And the darkness snatches her back again.

*

When she opens her eyes again, all she can see are hospital ceiling tiles and her first thought is, Shit, I've been shot.

But then it all comes back, the partner and the wife and the sex and the pain she remembers gripping her right before her legs gave out. And the baby.

She slowly looks around her, testing herself for dizziness and finding that even the slightest movement made her nauseous. Her eyes range over the room and land on Munch in his chair beside the hospital bed. His chin is propped on his hand and he smiles as she meets his gaze.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," he says dryly.

"Ugh," is all she can manage.

"You've been out since this afternoon. How are you feeling?"

There is still an oxygen mask on her face but she lifts up her hand and pulls it down and fuck if that doesn't make her feel dizzy, too. "Bad," she croaks.

He nods. "Figured as much. They said you probably hit your head when you fainted. You gave us a pretty good scare."

Everything seems slower, but she forces herself to acclimate as she presses the button to raise her bed so she can sit up. "Us?" she asks roughly.

"Elliot told the paramedics he found you passed out on the floor in the locker room. Someone called a bus while he tried to get you to come around." She gets a sudden mental picture of Elliot in a Buster Brown suit and kneesocks fetching her smelling salts, and it makes her almost-smile. Munch notices and smirks. "Sure, laugh all you want. It's funny when you're not the one who has to deal with your ass of a partner while he's having a meltdown."

The partner and the wife and the sex and the pain and—

She clears her throat and tries to speak normally, but the question inside of her won't come out alone, it's riding out on a hiccup that's threatening to turn into sobbing hysteria. "The doctor—" she finally stutters. "The baby—"

He nods again. "You're right, sorry. Hold on and I'll get someone to tell you what's going on."

After Munch leaves, she slowly shifts in her bed to avoid another headrush and cradles her belly again. Broken condom or no broken condom, she is scared shitless. She will give up anything, absolutely anything, for this little one to be healthy and safe. Anything. Even Elliot.

Elliot.

Where the hell is he, anyway?

The silence is too much, and the beeping of her monitor does absolutely nothing to assuage her anxiety. She cradles her middle, praying to whoever is listening to make everything normal, to make everything the way it was before Elliot started touching her and before she started craving it. But she doesn't care about that now, she can't think straight when all of her thought processes are depending on this swell in her middle, on the wellbeing of someone she's never met, on the health and heartbeat of whoever it is that's growing inside of her.

Protective instincts have always been her thing; she deals with children all the time. But this, this is different, and of course it is, but no one has ever explained this to her, this overwhelming rage at the thought of anything even _thinking_ of harming her baby, _her_ child. Elliot is the only other half she's ever had, she can't imagine life without him and it hurts her head to think about the prospect, but she will murder him, she will rip him limb from limb from limb with a hacksaw if their illicit encounter at the precinct has harmed one hair on this baby's head.

Munch finally returns and leaves her with a young man in a white lab coat who looks like he's not too far removed from earning his Bachelor's. He smiles at Olivia and extends his hand. "Hi, Olivia, I'm Dr. Jameson."

She nods like she knows him and he seems nice enough but right now she doesn't care if Hitler's personal physician is standing in front of her, if they can tell her what she needs to know. Her stomach feels firm enough, but she's heard too many horror stories about stillborn children to assume it as a mark of health. "Hi," she rasps. "I'm hoping you can tell me—I need to know what's going on—"

"With the baby," he interrupts calmly. "I understand. Well, we've run pretty much every test we can run on the fetus in this case, and everything looks good. Your baby seems to be healthy. What you experienced were Braxton-Hicks contractions—are you familiar with those?"

Braxton-Hicks. Of course. She nods. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She _would_ end up in the hospital with something this ridiculous. "Uh, a little."

"A lot of expectant mothers have them; your baby seems to be doing well. Right now, I'm more concerned with the fainting – your bloodwork is showing some serious iron deficiencies."

"Deficiencies?"

"It's pretty common, but it's making you anemic. You'll need to bone up on your iron intake from here on out, and make sure you stay hydrated, etc. Otherwise you'll end up on the floor again." She grimaces and he smiles. "Do you remember what happened?"

Olivia shakes her head, ignoring the stirring of her equilibrium. "I just remember feeling dizzy and trying to sit down."

Dr. Jameson nods. "You were brought in after your partner discovered you'd collapsed. He thought you might have hit your head, so we performed a CT to rule out any concussion or head injuries, and – good news there – you're head's fine."

He eyes her heart monitor and smiles at her again. She's sure the gesture is meant to be comforting. "Now, I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind."

As long as you don't ask me if I engaged in doggy-style intercourse with my married partner against a row of lockers during my second trimester, we're golden, she thinks acerbically. "Sure."

"Okay. Now, according to your colleague, you may have been involved in some sort of work-related conflict right before the episode."

She blinks. Sure she could tell him exactly what she was doing, but he's probably not even old enough to know what an orgasm is, and she doesn't really feel like explaining to him that someday she might forget her own name, but she'll never, ever be unable to recall the sound Elliot's voice made around that name as his fingers clenched around her hips and he came inside of her. Those details don't seem extremely pertinent at the moment, though.

"Which colleague?" she asks dully.

"Uh…" he checks his notes. "John Murch?"

"Munch," she corrects, confused. "And I'm not sure what he means by 'conflict.'"

"So you weren't involved in a conflict?"

"No. Well, yes."

Dr. Jameson folds his arms over his clipboard and scrutinizes her slowly, and Olivia hopes against hope that there isn't some sort of secret medical giveaway stamped on her forehead that will tell him what she's done with Kathy Stabler's husband. "Ms. Benson—"

"Detective."

"Detective Benson," he continues. "I'm going to cut to the chase. Can I give you some unsolicited advice that you may or may not find extremely offensive?"

Unbidden, Elliot's face as he rips open the front of her bra comes to her mind and she feels herself shrink into the pillow. Almost imperceptibly, she nods.

"A pelvic exam was performed after you were admitted, and there's a lot of swelling; I'd venture to say you're going to be uncomfortable for a day or two. Sex at this stage of pregnancy is perfectly fine, but I would suggest not engaging in anything particularly rough for the remainder of your term." He clears his throat and meets her gaze, and she's so fucking uncomfortable in a way that has nothing to do with the area between her legs, but at least he's being straight-forward. She's had about enough of double-speak and conversations with several dozen layers.

"Olivia?"

She freezes. Elliot is standing in the doorway, and secret medical giveaway nothing, there is a large scarlet 'A' on her hospital gown, she just knows it. "I… uh—"

"Detective Stabler," Dr. Jameson says curtly. "We'll be done in just a moment, if you don't mind waiting outside."

Elliot's brow furrows and he looks at her to intervene. She sighs. Old habits die hard. "He can stay," she says weakly. "He's my emergency contact."

The doctor nods, and Elliot all but marches into the room as Jameson continues. "So that's all I have for you. Iron supplements and plenty of water. And discretion in your sexual activity as you get closer to term."

Her face feels like Elliot's face looks. Stone. "Okay," she says thickly. "I'll be careful."

Jameson smiles and takes his chart. "Great," he says cheerfully. "Well we're waiting on two more tests to come back so we can confirm that everything's good, and then you'll be ready to go."

"Knock, knock," Munch says with a smirk as he passes the doctor on his way in. "Everything okay?"

She nods.

"Waiting on test results," Elliot says shortly.

Munch nods. "Can I get you anything? Water?"

Olivia shakes her head. "I'm okay."

"He said you need to stay hydrated," Elliot says gruffly. "I'll get you something."

Munch settles into the chair again and pulls out a magazine. "You'll love this. Our government routinely violates our civil rights to privacy and free speech, dicks around in Washington and spends all its time de-valuing our currency, but the only things available to read in the waiting room are articles on Brangelina and teen culture." He flips open the magazine and frowns. "Ever hear of a book called 'Twilight?'"

"Are you two the only ones here?" she asks suddenly.

He looks up. "Cragen's here. Your erstwhile ambulance buddy asked me to stay with you while they talked."

She sighs. "Probably trying to convince him to put me on mandatory bedrest."

"Probably. Although I don't imagine it would do any harm at this point. Maybe you _should_ stay home more, take it easy. It might be best."

Olivia rolls her eyes. "For the baby, or for you?"

"Both," he smirks. "And maybe you and Elliot could use a little time apart."

Her head snaps up and she ignores the wave of dizziness that accompanies the movement. "What do you mean?" she asks roughly.

He shrugs. "Fin tells Cragen that you guys left the squadroom to duke it out upstairs. Then we all end up watching you getting loaded into an ambulance. Doesn't look good."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if you're going to pass out everytime you and Elliot go at it, you may want to either find a new partner or hire someone to start catching you before you hit the floor."

Her cheeks feel hot, and she cringes to think what John would say if he knew how he should be defining the phrase 'go at it.' "It wasn't Elliot's fault," she says defensively, although she's not quite sure.

Munch shrugs again, the very picture of nonchalant. "Didn't say it was. Just making conversation."

Elliot comes back with her water, and he watches her sip in silence as Munch chuckles darkly over his paper. Her heart monitor keeps a steady cadence of the moments that pass slowly in the small, sterile room.

Olivia's not sure, but she thinks her fucked-up life has provided her with an even more fucked-up definition of the word "family."

*


	19. Pro et Contra

"For and against"

And I love, love, LOVE everyone's feedback. Thanks to all who've commented - glad you're enjoying it!

*

The drive to her apartment is tense.

Elliot of the Bottled-Up Emotions is at the helm; his hands are sticking with the familiar and are once again wrapped around the steering wheel, like the strength of his grip is necessitated by gale-force winds or quicksand or anything else that inevitably pulls things into itself. There is no music or conversation – the only sounds she hear are the traffic moving outside and Elliot grinding his teeth. But this is good, this is the only thing she can handle right now because the sound of his voice is going to feel like someone's jabbing a bruise. Or maybe an open, bleeding wound.

She's had a couple of hours now to think, to test within her mind the concept of what she's done and to wallow in it. She's had flashes of Elliot's wedding ring on his hand as it was pressed against the locker in front of her and her stomach is twisting in a very non-pregnancy-related way.

Guilt.

Guilt because somewhere in Queens, Kathy Stabler is anxiously waiting for her husband to come home. Guilt because she suspects she has fucked over the best partnership in their unit. And guilt because she is beginning to suspect that she will cling to the memory of that fucking locker room, no matter how terrible she knows it was.

For twenty minutes, she mattered to somebody as more than a co-worker or a protector or a patient, and that feeling, the feeling of mattering, was intoxicating. She must be reverting to a more naïve frame of mind, one in which sex is automatically equated with love and respect. Maybe next she'll start listening to Wham! again. Or acid wash a pair of her maternity jeans—

"Olivia?"

With a start she looks at her partner who, she realizes suddenly, has parked and opened her car door for her. The open, bleeding wound begins to seep.

"Thanks," she says quietly, ignoring his outstretched hand and pulling herself out of the car. But his hands won't be ignored for long, they defiantly wrap around her biceps and practically lift her out of the sedan. And then she is standing up fine, thank you, but his goddamn hands haven't budged.

"I've got it," she says, and it's a harsher than she intended. "I'm not an invalid." And then the hands drop, and the autumn air rushes to cool the spots of heat where his palms had rested.

Elliot has two lines, perpendicular to his eyebrows and parallel to each other, and they crease the skin right between his eyes. Once, she'd read a description of a man with an aquiline nose and thought of him immediately -- she knows the planes of his face like she knows her own, and she thinks this knowledge is giving her an ulcer. She thinks of magnets, and the inevitability of attraction and repulsion. Nobody ever thinks to ask the magnets what they want; they're just expected to follow the rules of nature.

Attraction and repulsion.

"'Kay then," Elliot says gruffly as she snaps back into the present. "Take your iron. Call if you need anything."

She nods, and it's almost easy to move naturally as she feels his eyes on her back as she climbs the steps to her building's front door. She concentrates on the crunch of leaves on the stairs beneath her feet and wills herself not to notice that, despite the fact that she has allowed the two of them to combust, he still waits for her to get inside her front door before he drives away.

*

Elliot lasts four whole hours.

"We gonna talk about yesterday?" he asks quietly. And she doesn't need to ask him what he means.

Yesterday.

Her reflexes twitch and she glances at Fin, who is the very picture of productivity as he harasses someone via his desk phone. "I don't give a rat's ass—" she hears him say, but she stops listening to him as her gaze drifts away, to her partner.

Yesterday.

It seems like days, weeks even, since she engaged in catastrophic locker room sex with Elliot. With _Elliot_. And she doesn't know how, but suddenly every light in the room is gleaming off of both his wedding band and the badge on his desk – two perfectly good reminders of why she has royally fucked this one up.

She considers fainting again – she'll take an awkward conversation with the pre-pubescent Dr. Jameson about her sexual practices any day over this. Maybe hitting the floor again will make Elliot realize that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, within her that is equipped to deal with anything he wants. Not now.

"Liv?" he prods.

"I—" No. Not 'I,' she tells herself. This has absolutely nothing to do with you. "Elliot," she amends. "What do you want me to say?"

After a pause, he shrugs, but the gesture doesn't match his face. His eyebrows will lose their ability to lift soon, she's sure of it, and then he'll be this cranky-ass, cheating cop with a permanent scowl. Actually, that wouldn't be too different from the present.

"Anything," he says after a moment. "Just talk to me."

"You know what I'm going to say."

Another pause. Another shrug. "So say it."

Sometimes, when she is sitting on her couch or riding in the car or waiting at the doctor's office, she thinks of life, and of death, and she wonders whether she'll get any brownie points for being a girl scout, or if life is just meant to be a hedonistic playground and she's wasting her time. Delayed gratification used to be something she flirted with, drawing things out, testing the additional euphoria that came with anticipation. But somewhere along the way, she's become a mess of denial and pseudo-Spartan values that help her get past her own wants, and this is good. This is helping her now, as Elliot and his furrowed brows look at her expectantly, waiting for a statement.

"Well," and she squares her shoulders. "What we did was irresponsible and inappropriate, not to mention wrong," she says firmly. "And I don't like what it makes me, or you, for that matter."

He says nothing and stares at her. Those eyebrows are making her nervous.

"Elliot?"

And then he sits up, and his face is still in a semi-scowl but at least he's still with her. "I agree," he says brusquely.

He agrees. Of course. "Yeah?"

Elliot nods. "Yeah."

"So—"

"I just didn't want it to be that thing we never talked about," he says, so quietly that she strains to understand.

She nods. "Okay."

"Okay, we'll get past it, okay? Or okay, we're not going to talk about it anymore?"

For the first time in at least two days, Olivia fights a small smile. "We'll get past it."

His lips twitch upwards, and there is something about Elliot's smiles lately that just makes him look angrier, but she's getting used to it. She _will_ get used to it. "Okay," he affirms.

Finally, they can agree on something, Olivia thinks darkly. And with a twist of her lips, she returns to her work.

*

Two hours later, she is seated at a bare table in yet another interview room, doing what she does best, what she can only do now: talking.

"Doesn't look good, Tom," she says quietly to the man across from her. His head is down and he's sweating bullets, and she has already noted that he cannot look directly at the photographs she's shown to him. Marie Fontagne, 22, her body obscenely displayed in a black-and-white image that does not do justice to the amount of blood on the ground around her, stares up at them. Her mouth forms a small 'O' shape, as if she had been only mildly surprised by the fuck sitting across from Olivia.

"I—I didn't—" he says flatly. "I didn't—"

"Tom," she says softly. "The truth. Come on, now, we know you were there."

At first her words don't seem to register. And then his head snaps up and he is across the table and in her face, spittle flying from his lips with each word and all she can do is blink. "Who fucked _you_ the wrong way, you stupid cunt?! You've got some fucking—"

And then he is gone, yanked back from her and across the back of his chair. There is only the clatter of furniture on the floor and the sound of cursing as Elliot, stone-faced, holds their suspect by the neck like an errant puppy. "Stay in your fucking seat," he growls.

"Fuck—"

"Sit!"

"Elliot—"

"Stupid cunt!" Tom says again. "You don't even know what you and your fat fucking belly messed with. Walk outside this building, you better have your guard dog here—"

*Slam*

The silence rings in her ears as Tom quiets down after his face abruptly meets the table; Elliot's face is crimson, and he's breathing through clenched teeth like he's being burned.

Cragen will not like this.

"Elliot—"

"Benson, Stabler," Cragen barks from the doorway.

Olivia sighs, takes the folder and stands. She is officially too pregnant for her job and it sucks.

Elliot isn't looking at her as he waits at the door for her to walk in front of him. He is officially too crazy for his job, and that sucks, too.

"What the hell was that?" the captain demands as soon as the door closes.

"Persuasion," Elliot shrugs.

And then Cragen is closer to his face than she's ever seen before, and Elliot almost flinches. Almost.

"You really want to stake your pension on another complaint in your jacket?" Cragen asks. "There's only so much leash you've got left."

"I don't need—"

"The hell you don't. And Olivia—" he frowns at her. "A word?"

Fuck.

"Care to tell me why you're back here today?" he asks as she shuts the office door.

"Sir?"

"Your doctor told you to take it easy."

"I am—I've been sitting down all day."

"Olivia…" he sighs.

"Cap—"

"No, listen to me. Consider yourself warned – I watched what happened in there and you are officially in the red. From here on out, if this job makes you so much as sneeze too hard, I'm sending you home. Understand?"

"Sir—"

"Not negotiable."

Fuck.

*

There is a knock on her door at eight o'clock, and the guilt overwhelms her when she sees that it's him. There will be no brownie points in heaven for this, especially not with the tiny leaps her stomach is making at the sight of him.

"Hey," she says around the door, and she sounds scratchy.

"Hey," he says back, and he is looking at everything in the immediate vicinity except for her eyes. His fingers clench and unclench rhythmically, and he's breathing like he ran all the way from the precinct.

"El—"

"I can't get past it," he interrupts roughly.

His ragged breathing marks the seconds before she can muster her voice. "What—"

"You know me, Olivia," he says, and his voice is almost pleading as he finally meets her shocked stare. "You know me. I don't do this, I'm not that guy who does this. I know I have a wife, and you know I love Kathy—"

There is a lump in her throat, and she slowly emerges from behind the door.

"—I've never done this, anything like this, Olivia. You _know_ me. You know that."

She nods. Damn this lump. "I know that," she says quietly.

He staring at something on the floor by her feet. "Olivia—"

"No," she says softly.

Elliot's head snaps up, and his eyes flash with something that is Not Guilt. "No?" he repeats.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I meant 'no.'"

"Oh."

This is bad. She has enough guilt of her own, thank you, and does not need to shoulder any of his. But maybe she deserves a little bit of this; she's pretty sure she can handle it, as long as he sits still and takes it when it's her turn to blame him.

He is glaring at her, and his chest is still expanding and contracting too rapidly to be good for his blood pressure. Then again, her own lungs are having a hard time keeping a good rhythm. The baby, she thinks, and this has been her mantra lately when it comes to getting worked up over Elliot. The baby, the baby. Stay calm.

"Say something." But the voice is too low to be Elliot's, too low and too rough. Elliot doesn't talk to her like this, not unless Something Bad is about to happen.

Something Bad.

"Elliot—" and she breathes. One, two, three. "You're an ass."

He blinks, and the silence stretches into what seems like hours before he clears his throat. "Yeah?"

Her words are shaky, and her voice isn't delivering them the right way and her eyes have not gotten the memo that she and Elliot have lost the right to be any kind of functional unit. "Yeah. So there's something."

"Are you sorry we—"

"Yes."

Silence. There is too, too much silence that is filling every fucking crack in the lines that hold them together, filling them like mercury and someday it's all going to heat up, expand and explode, and everything she is will shatter.

The baby, the baby. Breathe.

"You know what, Liv?" And his eyes hold hers and shit, shit, _shit_, something has changed in the last few milliseconds because her mind is doing that thing again where it's telling her to get the fuck out of Dodge with some semblance of evolved morality in tact, but her body is humming, absolutely humming. Either Elliot is angry or Elliot is aroused, and both of those options have started a slow, rolling burn at the base of her spine as she braces herself for either outcome. "You know what?" he says again. "I'm not… I'm not sorry."

Her face is as blank as her mind, she can feel it. She is braced for impact now, because Elliot is steering this interaction to a place where she cannot go, she _can't_, but she knows she will follow him there, anyway.

"I know I'm supposed to be," he continues. "I wish I could be. But I'm not. Now, what do you make of that?"

Expansions and explosions.

Shut the fucking door! her mind screams at her.

Enjoy him while you can! the rest of her exults. You've already shot everything to hell.

Breathe, breathe. One, two, three.

And then he's too close for her to listen to anything at all, and the last sound she hears before she feels his hands on her face and his teeth and tongue clashing with hers is the sound the door makes as Elliot swiftly kicks it shut.

"Don't pass out," Elliot pants against her mouth. Her head falls back with a moan.

And she doesn't.

*


	20. Sub sole nihil novi est

"There's nothing new under the sun."

*

Olivia is wide awake.

There is something about the city at night that always makes her feel like she's missing something, like in the morning she'll step out of her apartment and into a slightly different world. Even now, as streetlamps throw crooked patterns of illumination across her bedroom walls, she can feel Manhattan groaning, evolving. Transforming with small, barely perceptible changes that she has to look closely at to see. It's inevitable, though. Everything changes.

Beside her, Elliot shifts, muttering in his sleep, and she immediately tenses.

Everything changes.

Slowly, firmly she flexes her fingers into the skin of her abdomen. Testing. Are you awake? she wonders silently. Elliot snores.

Her womb is still.

The numbers of her alarm clock hold her gaze, and unblinking, unseeing, she tries again. One by one, her fingers press, exerting tiny amounts of pressure on her swollen belly. Hello? her mind whispers.

From within her, an answering flutter jolts every nerve in her body. Startled, Olivia blinks and smiles. Hi there, she thinks as she feels the movement. The fluttering starts, stops, and starts again, and her entire being warms, but this isn't the kind of heat that exists between her and Elliot, it isn't the fire that scars and consumes. This is a warm blanket and hot chocolate. This is home.

She sighs, and the contentment in the sound amazes her.

Behind her, Elliot turns in his sleep to face her, and she flinches as his hot arm falls across her and pulls her closer; he mutters something unintelligible, and she carefully tucks herself into him. His hand is unconsciously, lightly cupping her breast, and for one-eighth of a second, she lets everything fall away and she imagines horrible, horrible things. Things like, she's lying in bed with her husband, caressing the mound in her middle that houses his child – a child with a father who _isn't_ a prick editor with fatherhood issues. Things like pretending she is a part of a real family, pretending she's in the real deal and not some fractured, fucked-up, adulterous mess with a man that she's borrowing from Kathy Stabler.

Elliot's snoring picks up, and his grip on her tightens as she rolls onto her back, ignoring the discomfort her newfound belly brings to the position. His arm's weight crushes her breasts, and the weight on her sternum transports her back to her girlhood room, where her mother's voice slurs sweetly through the silence.

Dusk covers the valley, stars slowly come into sight… Birds chatter among the trees, before…. Before…

And just like that, she's done pretending.

Her hands cradle her stomach again and she offers a silent apology to the child resting inside. God help me, Baby, but I love you more than you will ever be able to imagine. And I'm actually kind of happy right now, but I don't want to be, because this thing isn't going to last long, and you'll be here soon and I don't want _you_ to have a mom that cries on your shoulder all the time. Here's hoping I don't completely fuck over your chances at a normal, healthy upbringing.

The mattress shifts, Elliot's breathing changes, and she has spent enough nights in the crib with him to realize that this means he is awake. Her eyes flicker to the clock again.

4:18.

She is jostled and cooled as he swiftly climbs out of the bed and pulls on his boxers; for several seconds the only sound is the occasional car outside and the brush of his bare feet on her carpet. She hears the clink of glass and the running of water; he's thirsty, and after the past several hours, this does not surprise her.

A moment later he pads back into her bedroom and comes around to her side. Their eyes meet in the darkness as he sets a glass of water on her bedstand. He does not look surprised to find her awake.

"Here," he says, and his voice is rough from sleep.

Pushing herself up, she swings her legs over the edge of the bed and reaches for the glass, pulling the sheet to her chest. She gulps greedily, stopping only when he holds out his other hand.

"Iron."

"Oh," and she takes the pills from his hand. "Thanks."

With a sigh, he sits on the bed beside her and rests his elbows on his knees. She eyes him as she swallows the gigantic iron capsules, noting that he's staring ahead and to the left of him like he's going to say something. The last time she saw this look was after Gitano.

She drains the glass to the last drop before turning it over and over in her hands, and finally, he turns to look at her.

"How are you?" he asks quietly.

If the situation wasn't already absurd enough – really, how does she think sleeping with her married partner will end? – she would laugh at his question. But it seems he really wants to know.

"I'm okay," she says quietly. "Tired."

He smirks. "I'll bet."

Olivia's lips turn up, ever so slightly. "How are you?"

Silence.

"Hm," he sighs after a moment. "Good. Baby doing okay?"

"Everything's great," she assures him.

"Good. That's good."

Everything's normal, is what she should have said. Baby kicking and frolicking on top of her bladder, which, thanks to the amount of liquids she's been drinking lately, is about to burst. With a shove, she stands up and begins to walk to the bathroom, grabbing her robe from the doorknob.

"Liv?"

"Call of nature," she throws over her shoulder.

In the sanctuary of her restroom, she mulls over what the hell she is supposed to say to him when she goes back into her room. 'Thanks for a great time' hardly seems appropriate, especially when she will be sitting across from him at her desk in several hours.

She washes her hands and wonders what issues Munch and Fin have in their partnership, aside from Fin's derisive skepticism whenever his partner brings up the "Kennedy was probably assassinated by an extraterrestrial" theory. Not once has she ever glanced over to their desk to find them staring into each other's eyes. And she hasn't found them doing the nasty in the locker room. Yet. They are co-workers and friends, and that is all. Simple. Semi-healthy.

Must be nice, she thinks darkly.

When she walks back into the bedroom, Elliot is dressed and tying his shoes, and she quickly schools her face into a passive expression before he looks up. "Heading out?" she asks calmly, and she feels the baby flutter again at the sound of her voice.

He nods, adjusting his belt as he stands. "Gonna head in early, catch up on some stuff."

"Should I—"

Elliot shakes his head, cutting her off. "Stay here, get some rest." He looks at her pointedly. "Doctor said to take it easy."

If one more person quotes that goddamn doctor to her, she will pull out the service weapon that Cragen is still letting her carry and have a fucking field day. Her expanding stomach has apparently been claimed as property of the NYPD, and every single person in their fucking precinct has expressed some form of concern at the fact that she is not spending her pregnancy languishing on her couch, watching Oprah and ordering maternity-friendly take-out as a young Swedish boy massages her swollen feet and feeds her pre-natal vitamins.

She notices that his tie is haphazardly lying across the top of her dresser, and she refuses to remember the feel of his bare chest against her breasts, or his mouth against the skin beneath her jaw, or the pained concentration on his face when she took him in as she slid down onto him, or any of the other events that transpired after she slid that fucking tie from his neck. She picks it up and extends it to him. "Don't forget this," she says coldly. And she's not sure if she's referring to the scrap of silk in her hands or the hours in her bedroom that have altered their relationship, whether they want to acknowledge it or not.

He frowns. "Is there a problem?"

Yes, there is a problem. This explosion has been a long time coming, so to speak, and she should feel relieved that it's finally out there, that they can know they want each other. But it's still fucked up, they're still as broken as they were; the lid has been taken off of the pressure cooker, but it has not solved one damned thing between them.

Hours ago, he'd groaned her name and gently kneaded her sensitive breasts and caressed every single inch of her until she thought she would swallow her own tongue, until her release ripped through her like she'd embraced a grounding rod, and she'd collapsed at his side and given him a small smile. But now, here they stand, sated and defensive, with no idea of what the hell they are supposed to say.

"No problem," she says stiffly, sitting back on her bed. "I'll see you at work."

Elliot stares at her for what seems like minutes, and she cannot fathom what's happening behind his eyes. And then, finally, he blinks, bends to kiss her head, and leaves.

As she hears her front door close with a soft thud, she presses her fingertips into her belly again, testing for a reaction.

Nothing.

With absolutely no expression, she settles back onto her side of the bed and stares at her clock until the alarm informs her that her day has officially begun. Both she and the baby are silent.

*


	21. Obsta principiis

"Resist the beginnings."

Sorry that updates are taking longer... life happens! Thanks again, everyone, for your wonderful feedback.

*

Some sleeping dogs are better left that way.

There are circles under her eyes that she covers up with concealer and circles under Elliot's eyes that no one seems to notice, and it is business as usual, with the silences and the intermittent staring and an odd, raw tension that might give her an ulcer, until lunchtime when she decides to fuck it all and go for a walk.

A walk was the original plan, anyway, but something about this whole mess has opened up a big, dark hole in her chest, and it feels a lot like loneliness and something else, something worse. She shouldn't feel lonely, though, she has no right – her belly keeps her constant company. But the baby can't talk and the baby can't grab a midnight chai tea and the baby shouldn't have to listen to its mother say things like, I fucked my partner again last night and now have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do with him.

Babies really shouldn't hear people say 'Fuck.'

So two blocks into her stroll – which she actually suspects is more of a waddle – she hails a cab and, ten minutes later, finds herself climbing out of the car onto West 125th Street in front of the building that houses Casey's office. The cold stone front of the building inexplicably reminds her of Elliot's face.

Don't do this, something inside of her keeps saying, over and over. It's Casey. You work with her. He works with her. This is not an ignorant outsider. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't _do_ this.

But there are words inside of her that she cannot, can _not_ keep – they are heavy and sharp and they might do something bad, like slice through her heart or her baby; she has to get them out of her gut, they have to come out, and she's pretty sure she blames herself and her partner for Elliot's recent inability to help her. And her neglect of her own social life – Kurt Moss notwithstanding – has insured that she has limited options when it comes to spilling her guts.

Huang is out of town, working with the Albany field office. She'd checked.

There is a moment, as the elevator doors close and the man in front of her asks her which floor she needs, that she surely and truly wants to go back to work. Maybe Elliot's onto something, and pretending nothing happened, that she doesn't have his bite mark on her shoulder or his skin under her fingernails, is what's best.

But the hole in her chest is still there.

So here she stands, still undecided and growing more uneasy by the second; she can see into the windows that line Casey's office, can see that Casey's giving herself wrinkles by frowning at her computer screen, when all of a sudden the redhead looks up and sees her.

"Olivia!" she says brightly – or as brightly as Casey is able. "Come in."

"Hey," she starts as she tentatively settles into a chair. "Sorry to just drop in—"

Casey waves her off. "Don't worry about it. What's up?" Something must be off in Olivia's expression, because it takes Casey exactly two seconds to assess her face before she frowns and closes her laptop. "Everything okay?"

"Um," Don't do this. Don't do this. "Yeah."

"How's the baby?"

"Great. Twenty-three weeks strong."

Casey smiles. "You look great. Are we still on for your appointment tomorrow?"

Olivia nods slowly. Elliot is going to pitch an Irish Cop Tantrum when he discovers that he won't be the one hovering over her at Dr. Patel's, but he'll need to understand that, until she can stop hearing him growl his release into her right ear, she needs someone else in this baby thing with her. It has started to feel like just the two of them and that's not right, especially when there are actually four, what with her and the baby and Elliot and Kathy and, hell, maybe even five if she includes the deity Elliot has apparently decided to ignore.

She can hear the tones of Casey's voice, but they're echoing meaninglessly in her head as she tries to concentrate. The baby kicks and she blindly reaches to hold her stomach. Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. In her mind's eye, Stone-faced Elliot glares at her silently; he's always liked his privacy.

"Hello?"

She looks up suddenly. Casey is leaning back in her chair, eyeing her with a speculative look.

"Are you alright?"

Olivia nods. She remembers blurting out her pregnancy news to Elliot, and she feels like something similar is about to occur. This baby is taking up too much room – there isn't any space left inside of her to store Shit No One Needs to Hear.

"Something you want to tell me?" Casey asks bluntly.

Her mouth opens, and Casey's brows climb. "I did something bad," she says, and it sounds blunt and collected and confident, but she thinks she can feel her liver shaking.

"Work?"

Olivia pauses. "No. Yes." Casey's forehead wrinkles in confusion, and she searches for the rights words. "I—"

"Wait," Casey says quickly as she holds up her hand. "Before you go any further… is this something I should know as your ADA? Or as your friend?"

Friend. Casey is her friend. Of course, of course she knew that, she's not stupid, she knew that. But Casey just said the word, made it official, and it conjures up mental images of nail polish and coffee dates and sleepovers and secrets and a deep, sacred female trust and the image plants itself firmly into Olivia's head and quickly takes root. And then she looks at Casey and hopes, hopes to anything listening, that Casey is worthy of this trust.

"It's…um." She swallows quickly. "It's Elliot."

Casey's frown intensifies. "Is he okay?"

Olivia nods quickly. "He's fine."

"Okay." Casey looks at her expectantly and Olivia tries, truly she does, to spit out the words that are rolling around like bile and honey in her mouth. I slept with Elliot. I slept with Elliot. I slept with Elliot and he's married and I'm pregnant and there are no do-overs because I still feel his hands on my hips, my shoulders, my face and everywhere else. And that's not good.

"At least," she continues. "I think he's fine. It's hard to tell anymore."

Casey nods. "Well, you know Elliot. He has his moods."

He sure does. She smiles grimly. "He does."

"Is that all that's bothering you? That he won't tell you how he's doing?"

And here is the point of her trip, here is where she can let it all out and say, Casey, that is Not All That's Bothering Me. You see, I have been trying to blame my hormones for the fact that I have willfully and enthusiastically engaged in adulterous intercourse with Elliot Stabler, who is my partner, my sometimes-best friend, and the only man in my life other than Simon who I abolutely, positively, universally Should Not Fuck. But I did, and I liked it, but my whole life has disintegrated over several collective hours of sleeping with my partner.

Oh, and I'm pregnant, if you haven't noticed the galaxy-sized bulge that has made every single shirt I own embarrassingly tight.

Casey is looking at her again, waiting for a spoken revelation. Or maybe just an explanation. But in ten seconds she has realized that she can't do this, and the urgent voice in her head quiets as it realizes just how chicken-shit she really is when it comes to having a normal friendship.

"I guess that's pretty much it," she finally says quietly.

"And you can't just ask him what's wrong—shit," she says as her phone rings. She holds a finger up to Olivia and answers, "Casey Novak."

Two minutes later, she mouths a silent apology to Olivia, and Olivia excuses herself. She can hear Casey's business-like tones as she gets back onto the elevator and briefly wonders what it would have been like to admit to someone that she doesn't have anything figured out.

*

The hole in her chest is still gaping, but time alone in her apartment has numbed the edges, just a bit. Just enough.

Just enough to answer her door to let Elliot in.

He shakes the cold from his overcoat before reaching for her, and she closes her eyes and shuts her head down; his frosty fingers touch the skin underneath her shirt and she shudders involuntarily.

"Don't hate me," he says against her mouth. And she doesn't.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

*

His arms are trembling with exertion as he looms over her, keeping himself above her burgeoning abdomen. His eyes are narrow with the effort, and she begins to shift underneath him.

"What—ah—where do you think you're going?" he grunts, frowning.

"Hold on," she pants. "Let me turn around." But he doesn't let up, he braces himself and continues driving into her and her eyes start to roll back into her head. "Elliot—"

"Not from behind."

"It'll be easier for—"

"Not behind you," he growls again. "I can't see your face that way—"

The thought, the idea that her face, that her identity is necessary for him to want this floats in between them before bleeding into her skull and slowly seeping into every pore of her. This is Elliot, this is Elliot inside of her, and Elliot's severe face above her, and Elliot's hips in between her thighs and the rolling muscles of his shoulders underneath her fingers. This is Elliot, and he needs to see her face.

Her release ripples through her, and she gasps for air as he drives mercilessly into her body, over and over and over until, with a strangled scream, she bucks against him, and his face contorts like a fish gasping on the line as the spasms rip through her. And then all she can hear is her name in his voice and her own ragged breathing and the slap, slap, slap of him as his own climax crashes into them both before he finishes with a yell.

*

Olivia does not sleep, but the numbers on the clock still keep her company as she stares into the distance, pondering the soreness between her thighs and the heat that is Elliot's arm as it curls against her middle.

In the middle of the night, she feels him stir, his hardness insistent as it prods her lower back. His fingers gently work over her breasts as his other hand reaches around to caress between her legs. She lifts her leg slightly and he slips in, and it is alarming how natural this has become as he enters her.

He grunts softly as he begins a slow and steady rhythm. She feels his stomach muscles bunching, releasing against her, his fingers roaming her breasts, thighs, and face. She sighs.

"Say something," he murmurs against her neck. His finger rolls her nipple and she gasps softly.

"What…" she inhales shakily. "What do you want me to say?"

"Anything," he grunts. "Say anything."

Seconds pass, and she struggles for words as her breathing grows faster and her heartrate climbs. Nothing is coming to mind.

"Elliot," she starts, but then he growls and changes his rhythm, suddenly, driving into her with all the tenderness of a bulldozer. The tenderness between her legs protests, and in spite herself, she cries out softly. "Wait—"

He freezes, panting against her shoulder. "Too hard?"

"Yeah," she admits. "I'm still…oh… I'm still sore from last time."

His thrusts are slower, but his arms tighten around her and she feels like her ribs will be crushed with the force. His hands no longer work, they simply hold, and his palm crushes as his fingers clench her breast. His breathing is ragged and harsh, and the sound of it travels straight to her center; she tightens herself and he groans.

"Oh, god, Liv," he says into the skin of her neck. "You have no idea—"

But she does. And she lets a softer, gentler climax find her as he continues to cling to her body, grinding into her with deliberate gentleness. But then she comes, and her muscles grip him inside of her until his mouth opens against her skin and his teeth clamp down onto her shoulder. He growls into her and his thrusts are no longer gentle or shallow.

"Fuck! Olivia," he groans with each new push inside of her, and it rumbles out of his throat again and again and again until he empties himself into her with more force than she'd like, and she grimaces against her wrist. She will feel this later.

But he is moving more slowly now, and eventually he withdraws himself from in between her thighs and moves away. The only sound in the dark bedroom is his labored breathing.

After several minutes, he rolls away from her, and the bed shifts as he gets up; his footsteps retreat, and she hears water running in the bathroom. He returns to her side with a washcloth, and his face is unreadable as he motions her to roll onto her back.

"What—" she protests. Her hormones are raging, but the soreness between her legs has only increased with the force of his climax, and she braces herself for the awkwardness of refusing him another round.

"Here," he says quietly, and he gently parts her thighs with his hand. "Hold still."

"Wait—" she protests.

He says nothing, but lowers the washcloth in between her legs, placing it on her inner thigh. The coolness of the terrycloth startles her and she gasps.

"Sorry," he mutters. "Maybe this'll help."

He strokes her gently with the washcloth, wiping his seed away; the coolness of his ministrations subtly relieves some of the inflamed throbbing, and she relaxes. His eyes are on his hands, intent on his task, and Olivia fights the overwhelming feeling that she is having an out-of-body experience.

This is Elliot, she tells herself again. Elliot.

His eyebrows are almost meeting over his nose, his mouth is carved into a frown and his jaw is clenched as the light from the streetlamps filters lazily through her windows and hues him in golds and grays; Elliot is not a beautiful man, his angles are too severe, but it's a face that she knows better than her own. And the hands that have pummeled a thousand lockers are gently caressing her through a washcloth. She sighs again, darkly, and the muscle in his jaw jumps.

"I don't hate you," she says quietly to his profile. Her words seem heavier in the dark.

He meets her gaze, then, and stares into her, and all of a sudden she is sorry that she didn't make him take her from behind the first time tonight, because this is suddenly Too Much. The hole in her chest grows wider, pulsing and bleeding and oozing something black, because Elliot's eyes are raw and dark and frightening when he looks at her like this and it isn't the look of two star-cross'd lovers sharing a post-coital revelatory moment – Elliot is a cop, he doesn't do any of that Romeo shit with her. This just hurts.

After a moment she looks away, and he clears his throat. "Sorry about this," he finally says, gesturing with the washcloth to her still-parted thighs. "I'll know better next time."

Olivia nods miserably, fighting the warring elation and self-loathing that spill into her brain in response to his words. He will show up at her door again, and she will do nothing to stop what will logically follow.

She is dozing lightly when she hears him searching in the darkness for his clothes. He is leaving now, going to sleep at home or sleep in the crib or sleep at his desk, she doesn't know. But she'll see him in the morning, and pretend not to know why he looks like death warmed over, and she'll see him at night, and pretend not to be desperate for his breath in her hair or his hands on her breasts. It's stupid and wrong and destructive, and she knows that this will not end well. But, baby or no baby, he's her only family; she's never learned how to make a new one.

She cannot hate this man. She can only hate herself.


	22. Loquitur

"He speaks."

*

"You ready to go?"

She breaks her intense meditation on whether or not the font in her e-mail signature needs changing and glances up; Elliot is looking at her expectantly. "What?"

"Doctor's appointment today," he reminds her as he stands and starts to shrug on his coat. She is silent, and he smiles hawkishly, examining her expression. "Did you forget?"

Well, fuck.

She is trying to figure out the best way to tell him that he's going to be sitting this one out -- it's the principle of the thing, really -- when the universe decides to intervene; her phone rings, they both flinch and she doesn't know what that means for him, but she needs a long fucking vacation.

"Casey?" she says quietly into the mouthpiece.

"I'm here."

"I'm coming out."

Elliot has frozen, mid-coat donning, and she disconnects the call and stands up. "Casey's taking me today," she says quietly. She gives him a tight smile, and she doesn't even feel surprised when his eyes narrow and he glares at her.

"Casey," he says flatly.

"I'll be back in a couple of hours," she mutters as she grabs her things.

His hands drop from where they were adjusting his lapels, but he is still wearing his coat, standing by his desk by the time she walks out the door.

*

"Twins!" Dr. Patel exclaims.

Olivia's heart stops, convulses, and explodes. "Wha—"

"I am just teasing," he says through his accent, and at first all she can feel is relief before realizing that she would love nothing more than to kick his head clean off his neck for fucking with her. Bastard.

He is still chuckling to himself and she is still seething when the nurse speaks up. "Do you want to know the sex?" she asks brightly.

"No." And maybe the force in her voice isn't required, but she is so sick and tired of telling these damned nurses that she needs time, which is the one thing this kid is not going to give her. Joy and fear live side by side in her head these days, and the sight of her bobbing belly in the mirror has unearthed a dread that she will be the worst thing to happen to this child. And it's easier to handle without picturing an actual little girl in pig-tails or a little boy with spaghetti stains on his mouth, because it's less real that way, and she knows it's unhealthy but she's sleeping with Elliot Stabler and the healthiest routes to take in her life are suddenly not the only options.

"Olivia would like to be surprised," Patel explains to Casey and the nurse. Casey who, by the lift of her brows, seems to want the nurse to whisper the gender to her, HIPAA or no HIPAA. "That's perfectly normal."

Normal, she thinks wryly. Not likely.

"What about names, Liv?" Casey asks anxiously. "Don't you want to be prepared?"

Olivia groans inwardly. "Casey, I'd like some time."

"Well, you need time to pick out names!"

"Casey…"

"Look, I'm not trying to pressure you," Casey says quickly, eyeing Dr. Patel and the nurse before turning to Olivia. "But let's be realistic. It'll be better if you know. Besides, it'll be easier for everyone to shop for."

That damned baby shower. "I don't care about--"

"And we can finally stop referring to it as 'it.'"

Olivia sighs.

*

Of course Elliot is angry.

She knew he would be, and her hunch is confirmed when she returns to work, 3D ultrasound images clutched hotly in her hand, and he is nowhere to be found.

"Where's Elliot?" she asks breathlessly.

"Caught a case with Munch," Fin explains. He's not even trying to hide the bitterness in his voice, and she smiles. "I'm still on these goddamn security checks." He nods at the small envelope in her hands. "What's that?"

"Baby pictures," she answers, and she hates when her heart pumps all over her sleeve but her lips stretch into a grin and she can feel the blood in her cheeks and the light behind her face and dammit, dammit, dammit Elliot should be here for this.

Fin grins back and approaches. "You gonna let me see them?"

"Yeah, here." With quick, businesslike movements she pulls out the pictures and holds them in front of her. Fin is by her side; she hopes he can't see her the tremors in her hand. "See the hand?"

"Yeah, I see the hand. I see a face too – are you having a boy or a girl?"

She smiles tightly.

*

Elliot and John had not returned by the time she'd headed home, and theimpending pissiness she knows she will eventually face had barely weighed on her for the rest of the day. She's spent her evening curled up on the sofa, sipping orange juice and eating Wheat Thins, pondering the perfection of the baby's fingers as they curl lightly against tiny cheek in the amber-hued image.

She holds the picture in her hand, and her baby's face stares back at her. I hope you're tough, kid, she thinks wryly. Because your dad doesn't care too much for either of us right now, and Elliot…

Well, you let me deal with Elliot.

By the time he knocks on her door, it is dark. She'd heard his knock and felt his ire from the hallway, and in his stony silence, his set face as he stormed in. She has been expecting something along these lines, but the dark mood he carries into her apartment doesn't jive with the contentment she'd felt earlier, and she cringes.

He swears under his breath and then his lips are on hers, and if she thought his anger was palpable before, she is swimming in it now. He kisses her angrily, biting and nipping and pushing until she is against the wall by her door. He looks furious. She sighs.

"Elliot," she says against him. "Listen—"

"I'm not just your fucking ride," he mutters, and his breath washes over her face and it feels hot enough to scorch her skin and send the particles flying away like dust or ashes. His hands are cold, stealing the warmth from his mouth as he holds her face.

"Then what are you?"

He freezes.

Her eyes feel too big to be intimidating. "Elliot. I'm serious."

"I thought you didn't want to put labels on this."

"Fuck labels. I need to know where your head is."

"My head's here," he snaps. "And what you did today sucked."

"What _I_ did?"

"Look," he says, and she feels the full weight of his words because they're not just coming out of his mouth. He's staring her down, and she doesn't blink. "I don't have any answers. I don't know. I don't know what to call this, or what to tell you about who I should be to you, or to Kathy, or to anyone else because I don't know what you want. And even if I _did_ know what you wanted, it doesn't matter, does it? Because I could know everything there is to know about what you want, and I sure as hell know what I want, but at the end of the day all we get is reality." He steps back and scrubs his face with his hand. "Reality," he spits out. "It sucks sometimes. I know that, and I know you know that. But it's what we've got to work with."

She's silent.

"I'm working with it," he continues. "And I've never done this. So, yeah, my head is here," he repeats. "It's here. But I'm not going to tell you what I think you want to hear just so you won't ditch me again."

_That_ gets her attention. "'Ditch you?'"

"I thought you were going to let me help you with this stuff," he grumbles, nodding at her belly.

"You have been."

"Casey—"

"Casey has also been helping. As is her right. Just like it's _my_ right to let her help me."

"She doesn't have any kids."

"Neither do I," she says defensively. "But I'm managing. That is, unless you want to do my job, too."

His brows knit impatiently. "I'm your partner."

"That's right. My partner. At work. And my friend."

"Not—look, don't do that—"

She levels her gaze at him, and is almost amused when he swallows audibly. "What are you, Elliot?"

He meets her eyes, and they stare at each other for what feels like eternity but is actually something like thirty seconds. Neither one blinks.

"I am your partner," he finally says slowly.

"My partner," she repeats.

His eyes still bore into hers, and he nods. "Last I checked."

"My partner."

Partner.

She puts her hands up and slips out of his grasp. Her couch welcomes her into its cushions as she collapses onto it and puts her head in her hands.

"Olivia?" he says from the doorway.

"What the hell are we doing?" Her voice comes out sounding like she's broken something vital, and she tells herself to nut up before something gross happens, like -- thanks to recent hormonal developments -- lactation. Or, even worse, tears.

She feels the cushions shift as he sits next to her and she looks at him. Elliot's face is unreadable, and he is staring at her orange juice like it's the one to blame for everything they've ever done.

She can feel the sky falling onto both of them.

"What is this?" she presses. "What are we doing? Do I just… am I supposed to just let you in whenever you show up?"

Elliot exhales heavily before leaning back into the cushions. She can't see his expression from that angle, but she notices that he has moved from glaring at her juice to glaring at her ceiling. One of the things she knows about Elliot, one of the Too Many things she knows about Elliot, is that he is almost physically incapable of having a substantive conversation with her while looking her in the eye.

"Tell me what you're thinking," she says, and she hates how much it sounds like begging.

The seconds pass, marked only by their breathing and the traffic outside; they turn into minutes before he finally speaks.

"I," he starts, but his voice is cracked and rough and sad, and he starts over. "I already told you everything I know. And I don't know how to have this conversation with you."

She says nothing, and waits.

"It's just…you get told your whole life to put yourself last. Deny what you want. Take up your cross," he says, and his mouth twists bitterly. His words are halting and slow, and seeing him like this, it's like watching Superman trip over a mere crack in the sidewalk. "Dying to self. God and country… family. All of those—all of those things come first. They're supposed to, or people get hurt. I know that.

"This isn't me," he continues slowly. "I mean, you know that, right? I don't want to hurt Kathy, and I can't hurt you and the baby. But..." he trails off, and his words sink in.

"But you will," she says after a moment. "Whatever happens with this."

He sighs.

Olivia processes his words, and rejection looms on the horizon. She has a lifetime of lonely behind her, she can do it again. Especially now. "So what does that mean?" she asks deliberately.

"I don't know, Liv," he admits, and he looks miserable.

With a sigh, she leans back. They are reclined identically, not touching, and she stares up at the ceiling with him and wonders how the hell it is possible for two people to fuck up their own lives so thoroughly.

The movement in her belly startles her; with a sigh, she places her hand over the fluttering. "The baby's moving," she says quietly, turning her head.

Elliot doesn't respond, but the muscle in his jaw twitches and he blinks. Slowly, slowly, slowly, she reaches across the space between them and gently takes his hand. She places it under her own over the stirring underneath her skin and the baby's kicking intensifies. Elliot's fingers twitch at the pressure, but she is looking down at their interlocked hands and she doesn't know if he's smiling or gritting his teeth. But he relaxes his arm and his hand stays. She absently traces the cold metal of his wedding band and wonders how and when Kathy will find out. Elliot's wife is shorter, weaker and doesn't know how to fire a weapon. But a day of reckoning is coming, and 7/10ths of Olivia is scared out of her fucking mind. She closes her eyes and exhales. That day will come, but it isn't today; today can hold all of her shit and Elliot's shit and, hell, probably Kathy's too. But today refuses to be ruined, and she's relieved.

"How was your appointment?" he asks finally. Her eyes are closed, so she can't see his face, but she imagines that he's calm.

She smiles serenely. "Good."

"Everything looks normal, then?"

Normal. "Yeah."

She hears it, the second he opens his eyes and looks at her, and her small smile wides. "Something funny?" he demands quietly.

Olivia opens her eyes and turns to him, and she lets her teeth show because frowning at him gives her wrinkles and she's tired, tired of frowning and watching him frown back. Maybe they can be happy people, for once, and grinning can be something they get used to. "I have something to tell you."

Elliot freezes, and at any other time she might have laughed at his expression. But she's focused now, focused on getting this out and saying the words that have been threatening to burst from her since this afternoon. She can feel herself light up from the inside again, like some middle-heavy, hormonal glow-worm. Casey would kill her if she knew.

"I'm having a girl."

Elliot can be a dumbass and a hard-ass and pain in her ass, but that doesn't matter now because he finally looks at her and sees what she wants him to and something inside of her blooms; he smiles and his jaw tightens as his brows knit over eyes that she knows are too shiny for his liking. She swallows back something that will turn this into an unbearably saccharine moment, but her eyes don't care about cheesy and one of them fills up and spills over. She can feel a tear blaze an embarrassingly wet trail down her cheek, but she doesn't bother to wipe it away because Elliot's grin gets slightly bigger and finally, for just a second, all is right with the world. He extends his arms and she leans into him.

"Congratulations," he breathes into her ear. She pulls away first, but he keeps his arm around her shoulders and shifts her closer, and she sighs contentedly and lets herself be held for a bit.

"A girl," he says. They are staring at the ceiling again, and she can hear the satisfaction in his voice.

"A girl," she agrees.

He sighs heavily and his lips twitch upward; he's exhausting his quota for the month, she thinks, but she keeps it to herself. She can taste her own contentment in the atmosphere.

"I'm glad it's a girl," he says finally.

She rolls her eyes and smirks. "Like you don't have enough women in your life."

He grimaces, but his face quickly smooths as he chuckles darkly and places his free hand on her belly. "One more can't hurt."

*

Time passes, and she doesn't know how long it is until his breathing finally deepens and slows. His hand is still heavy on her abdomen, and the heat of it through the thin camisole feels like a brand. Her news notwithstanding, even in his sleep Elliot is frowning, and she fights the urge to reach across the solid planes of his chest and loosen his necktie.

Minutes crawl by; she absently caresses the bones of his wrist and hand before drifting into a still and heavy sleep.


	23. Inter vivos

"Between living people."

*

Time passes, and she doesn't know how long it is until his breathing finally deepens and slows.

His hand is still heavy on her abdomen, though the baby has long since stopped her barrage of kicking; the heat of it through the thin camisole feels like a brand. Olivia's news notwithstanding, Elliot still frowns in his sleep, and she smiles faintly, fighting the urge to reach across the solid planes of his chest and loosen his necktie.

This is temporary, she can feel it -- they're in some weird, fucked-up bubble that only has room for their own individual shit. This baby is a girl that needs a name, and that is just one of the issues forming on the horizon as the real world prepares to come calling.

Minutes crawl by; she absently caresses the bones of his wrist and hand before drifting into a still and heavy sleep.

*

The sunlight filtering through her living room window wakes her up to find that she has a crick in her neck, a blanket over her upper body, and the quickly increasing need to find her way to the bathroom. And that she's not alone.

Elliot is still there, his tie now loosened, his head resting heavily in her incredibly shrinking lap. His legs awkwardly poke over the arm of her sofa and she fights the urge to smile before remembering that he has a very comfortable bed somewhere; he's not supposed to be sleeping on her couch with his shoes on.

She begins to wake him when it occurs to her that, for the first time in a long time, Elliot has slept almost an entire night, and so has she. His face doesn't look as peaceful as it could, but his brow is relaxed and it's something. It's a break. With a shy hand, she tentatively places the tip of her index finger into the small creases between his eyebrows, and his eyes quickly fly open and meet hers.

"'Time is it?" he asks thickly. His voice is rough, confused and scratchy, and she smiles.

"Time to get up. It's almost seven."

"Shit," he mutters, sitting up slowly. "Must've been exhausted."

"You haven't been getting much sleep lately," she offers quietly. His response is something between a smile and a grimace.

"My toothbrush is in my locker."

"You can use mine," she offers as he stands and stretches. "Here, help me up."

His hand closes around hers and he pulls her to her feet with a small smile. "How you feeling?"

"Ask me in five minutes," she says as she hurries to the bathroom.

Her bladder blissfully empty, she brushes her teeth and starts her shower. "Toothbrush," she calls into the living room as she strips down and climbs into the hot spray of water. The gush of water against her makes her gasp, and she kneads the muscles in her neck firmly, trying to work out the kinks. She can hear the sink water running; Elliot's getting rid of his morning breath.

"What's happening today?" she asks above the sound of the shower.

"Still on the prep school rapes," he says past the toothbrush.

"Got anything new?"

"Nope. John says he's got a gut feeling about McCluskey, though."

"Yeah, well, John's got a gut feeling on a lot of things."

She hears him chuckle as he rinses his mouth; the toothbrush sounds against the sink. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

"S'that 'Jingle Bells'?"

She can hear his smirk. "You know me. Christmas cheer and all that."

"Wassle away," she quips, and his chuckle barely registers over the streaming of her shower.

"Mind if I join you?" he asks after a moment.

Her hands, which were kneading the muscles in her neck and shoulders, still. She stares at the shower curtain pattern for a long moment. "Sure," she says steadily.

There is a rustle of clothing and a loud yawn before he climbs in moments later and looks around. "How are we going to do this?" he asks, pointedly eyeing the confined space. Wordlessly, she unhooks the shower head and hands it to him.

"Carefully."

*

She needs to start getting some sleep.

With a huff, she blows her hair out of her face and renews her attempts to file Munch's DD5s. Her belly is doing more than keeping her from seeing her feet; these days she's little more than a glorified administrative assistant to the three boneheads in her unit lucky enough to be men.

Fin saunters in with a box of old casefiles and motions at the empty desk across from hers with his head. "They ain't back yet?"

"Nope."

"They go to McCluskey's? I heard they had some follow-ups."

She shrugs, and after a moment he settles into his chair and begins digging; she marvels at how easy working around someone can be when she doesn't constantly feel the need to evaluate every sigh, motion or word that finds its way into the atmosphere around her. The quiet is comfortable.

Ten minutes later, she has three more files left in Munch's damn stack when Cragen bursts out of his office like a cyclone, pale and business-like, pulling on his trenchcoat as he walks quickly towards the door.

Fin is instantly alert. "What's wrong?"

Cragen eyes Olivia in silence for two nanoseconds. "Just got a call."

"What kind of call?" she demands. But he doesn't say anything because she freezes at the look on his face and one breath is enough for her to stand up as quickly as possible, ignoring the lightheaded feeling that has lately been accompanying such feats, and pulling on her coat and gloves. Fin does the same, and she has one arm in her jacket when the captain holds up his hand. "I think you should stay," he tells her quietly.

"I'm going," she says with a forceful shake of her head.

"Olivia—"

She glares at him. "I'm going."

The older man's frown lines deepen as he eyes her protruding abdomen, but she can feel something in her eyes that must be screaming Crazy, because he merely heaves a heavy sigh before turning on his heel and continuing to the door. She takes that as assent.

"What the hell's going on?" Fin demands as they follow.

Cragen is silent, and Olivia cringes.

Shit.


	24. Male parta male dilibuntur

What has been wrongly gained is wrongly lost.

*

The radio crackles frenetically as they race the nineteen blocks to the apartment building uptown where Munch and Elliot had attempted to interview Martin McCluskey for the third time, and she listens to the voices in the static with superhero-like vigilance and a glimmer of hope; there are no reports of an officer down.

Despite this, she can feel her heart sink as they see the army of squad cars amassed outside of the four-story walk-up. Not good, she thinks mechanically. Not good.

Fin and Cragen are twelve paces ahead of her by the time she manages to climb out of the unmarked, and she is aware of the anxious stares of those not momentarily busy with the situation inside. She is obscenely pregnant, but she holds up her badge as she crosses the barricade, silently daring any of these assholes to question the legitimacy of her presence.

Cragen's briefing is already underway by the time she reaches them. "…reports of shots fired, but McCluskey claims they're unharmed. He won't let anyone in to verify, and he won't put either of them on the phone."

"What does he want?"

"He says he's innocent, and he wants immunity and some screentime with a live news crew."

Fin stares at him. "That sound like an innocent man to you?"

"It might if he wasn't holding two of my detectives at gunpoint," Cragen interjects with a glare. "I want to know what's going on in there, now."

"Who's on point?" Olivia starts to ask, but the answer is obscured by the distracting buzz of the phone in her pocket. She pulls it out quickly, checking the display to see who's calling. And blinks.

Elliot cell.

"It's Elliot," she tells Fin, before quickly connecting the call. "Elliot, where the hell are you?"

Silence.

She frowns and plugs her left ear; her shoulder starts to spasm as the muscle contracts; Elliot had tried, but he'd never fully worked out that damned crick in her neck. Stress. Damn it, damn it, damn it. "Elliot?" she says again, louder.

There is nothing for a moment but rustling, and then a soft tap-tap-tap. She freezes.

"I can't hear anything out here," she says quietly to Cragen. "Let me sit in the car."

Ensconced in the relative silence of the nearest cruiser, she strains to hear past what she now suspects is the sound barrier of Elliot's pocket. And her own thudding heartbeat.

The voices are muffled, but she can make out what they're saying.

"...go as soon as I get my goddamn newsfeed."

"You really think they're going to send a crew in here while you've got a gun to someone's head?" Munch asks.

Easy on the sarcasm, she thinks urgently. Munch's strongpoints have never included hostage negotiations, and of course, of _course_ this is the case he and Elliot would work together.

"It's that, or I pull the trigger," McCluskey states firmly, and somewhere within the recesses of her brain, she notes that he sounds hysterical. "At least then I'll go to prison for something I actually did."

Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

If the hopeful voice screaming in her head is correct, Elliot is alive and well and tapping the phone with his finger, she's almost positive. Or maybe she's finally, finally lost her mind. But insanity would be such a relief, a welcome respite from the juxtaposition of images now flashing through her head: Elliot with narrowed eyes pumping desperately into her, groaning her name on every other breath. And Elliot with narrowed eyes, the barrel of a handgun pressed intrusively against his temple.

"Just let us go," Munch coaxes. "It'll look better for you if you let us go."

"I didn't have to worry about looking good until your goddamn partner told my wife I was wanted in a rape case! Now, I want you to look into a news camera and tell everyone that you _know_I didn't do it. Tell them you made a mistake and that I'm not guilty. I'll let you both go after that, I promise."

"Martin, listen to me," Elliot says, and the sound of his voice makes her flinch. "I don't think you raped those girls. I'm sure you didn't do it. But that's not enough – you gotta convince us, you gotta show us that you don't like to hurt people."

"_I_ have to show _you_?" McCluskey asks shrilly. "What the fuck happened to innocent until proven guilty?"

"Martin—"

"I've lost everything in the last six days, did you know that? My wife, she thinks you guys are right. She said she'd wanted out for a couple months and that you guys made up her mind for her. My _wife_ thinks I did it because you fuckers can't get your fucking _facts_ straight!"

"Listen to me," Elliot repeats uselessly.

"She took our baby," McCluskey spits. "My daughter. _Our_ daughter. Just gone, took her. Like she was a piece of fucking _luggage_. And now I'm gonna be on the news and my daughter's gonna grow up thinking her dad was a fucking _rapist_. Do you think I want that for her?"

"Martin—"

"I'm done. Get a fucking camera in here, or I swear I will blow your fucking head off."

McCluskey is too tense, she thinks frantically. Too tense. Pulled taut like a bowstring, those are the best and the worst because you can overwhelm them, but then again sometimes they just have a meltdown and start indiscriminately pulling the trigger. Her brain is working overtime, every synapse dedicated to finding some semblance of a solution, but mainly on getting Elliot the fuck out of there.

And then everything happens at once.

Over the phone, she hears what sounds like a door slam, just as Cragen taps on her window.

Inside, a woman's scream pierces Olivia's earpiece.

She can hear a grunt, another scream. A gunshot.

Another gunshot.

Another gunshot.

All hell has broken loose, the SWAT team is released into the building and outside, she can hear the muffled yells of officers on their radios. Shots fired, they keep saying. Shots fired.

"Say something," he'd said as he'd slid into her two nights ago. "Say anything."

"Elliot?" she half-yells into the phone. "Elliot? Are you there?"

There is nothing but silence, and then she hears the heavy footsteps of the SWAT team as they finally reach the fourth floor. Someone curses.

"Officers down!" someone else shouts.

Officers down. Officers down. Officers down.

A swarm of paramedics swiftly ushers a small parade of stretchers through the front door of the building. Cragen is yelling into a radio, Fin is yelling into a radio, everyone is yelling into a radio and their voices echo in a meaningless cacophony of panic in her head. A flash in a fourth-floor window catches her eye; it's a SWAT officer, and she dully wonders if he's talking to Elliot, or surveying what's left of him.

Her hand falls into her lap and she can feel her lungs, drooping like deflated balloons. The skin on her face feels like a piece of canvas with deep, deep lines traced into it. Like a weather-worn tombstone -- blank and worn and cold.

With numb, shaking fingers, she disconnects the call and sits in the silence of the squadcar. Her hand seeks the spot on her stomach where his fingers had rested all night and she spends minutes just trying to swallow back a scream. A nameless, faceless terror is crawling out of that hole in her chest, perching on her shoulder and whispering terrible things into her ear.

She pictures Elliot's face with the gun against it, sees the image disintegrate and combust with the velocity of a bullet through his skull. She sees empty days before the funeral, and years stretching in front of her after that, years of looking at his empty desk chair. Everything in the car is too still, too quiet – like existing in a state of suspended animation. Even her baby is still.

_Horror vacui_. She hates that fucking chair when he's not in it.

*

There is a flurry of movement on the building's front steps, and she cannot see his face, but she knows it is him on the stretcher from his shoes and the cuffs of his pant legs, and her eyes strain for a better glimpse of him as she hurries towards the moving gurney.

"That's my partner," she shouts to anyone who starts to stop her, to anyone who will listen. "Let me through. Let me through, that's my partner."

A paramedic is reaching out to slam the doors shut when she reaches the ambulance. She can see the dark, worn soles of Elliot's shoes, the ones he slept in the night before, the ones she's accused him of wearing every day for eleven years before he always swears Kathy just keeps buying him the same kind. "I'm his partner," she says breathlessly.

He assesses her badge for a fraction of a second before grabbing the door handle. "You're up front," he barks.

The ride to the hospital is short; after hastily fastening her seatbelt, she tries to twist in her seat to see what's wrong, but there are still too many bodies in the way and she swears under her breath. She spends the rest of the ride cradling her belly, staring in front of her and wanting something she cannot put into words, but she knows it definitely involves Elliot, breathing and seeing and moving and making life harder than necessary.

After several minutes, the ambulance screeches to a halt and she all but kicks her door open in her haste to get out, and she feels like she's moving at hyper-speed until the gurney rolls by, because then everything in her freezes.

Elliot's eyes are wide open, vacant and unseeing; his skin pallor is that of a fish's underbelly, his face is limp and slack-jawed and he looks mildly surprised. The white of what remains of his shirt no longer visible, it's stained red with the blood that is flowing, leaking over the fingers of the paramedic pressing down onto the wound in his chest. The tails of his overcoat hang slightly over the edge the stretcher like a cape, like some homage to a broken superhero and she's seen a lot of shit and a lot of death and a lot of blood, but never this much of his, and never after he's spent the night branding her skin with just one hand and she feels like throwing something at him and screaming. Cut it out, Elliot. Stand up and walk it off. Stop scaring me.

Say something. Say anything.

Elliot? a small part of her brain says to the rest of her, over and over. Don't lose your shit. That's not Elliot. Elliot gets pissed when people shoot him. He'll be pissed when he hears about this.

"Liv, we gotta move," she hears Fin say quietly. "C'mon."

Where did he come from? she wonders.

That's my partner. That's my partner.

Fin's arm is around her as he escorts her through the sliding double doors, and the heat leaks through her coat and onto her skin, but she sees a trail of blood-drops behind Elliot's stretcher and every other part of her is cold.

*


	25. Interludium

"It isn't me, someone else is suffering. I couldn't.  
Not like this. Everything that has happened,  
Cover it with a black cloth,  
Then let the torches be removed. . .  
Night."  
- Anna Akhmatova

*

There were times, when the world was changing and we were young, when I would find him sprawled across the bleachers after baseball practice with his cleats still on, his head resting on the glove that was still on his hand. He was passionate about that glove.

"Hey Kath," he would call as I climbed up to meet him. And he would grin and wink at me like I showed up to hang the moon just for him. And I would have.

I told him I was pregnant in his father's car, and he asked me to marry him while we sat on those bleachers. And I said yes, and everything was going to work out fine because how could it not, when a young man like Elliot Stabler lets you use his baseball glove as a pillow while you both miss supper so he can show you the constellations when the stars come out.

Then marriage and children and the Marines shaped our lives, and I used to watch him with the girls, how he melted when our oldest would gaze up at him with her big blue eyes and lisp questions like, "What fillth up a hippotamuth, Daddy?" Or when he smiled as Kathleen would curl up to him on the sofa so she could listen to Daddy explain the intricacies of the Giants' offense during football season. I saw him come home at eight o'clock in the evening, hanging up his jacket and preparing to quiz the twins for their history test the next day, and I would think – this is the only man in the world for me.

Maureen made the varsity soccer team when she was only a freshman, and she broke the news to us on a rare day when Elliot was home from work early. There were intricate Stabler high-fives all around, and my husband held out his hand to me with a grin, and the only thing I can remember from the complicated hand motions that followed is grinning back and hearing the tiny metallic clank as our wedding bands collided with the gestures.

High-fives and baseball gloves and whispered worries and shared confidences and falling asleep beside the man I wanted to be buried next to…

And now I'm smelling his pillow and wondering exactly when he last used it.

There is a picture of us from our high school graduation, it sits next to Maureen's and Kathleen's senior portraits as a reminder for them that, yes, Mom and Dad were young once, too. And Elliot looks every bit the young, cocky athlete that he was as I stood with his arm around me, marveling at my good fortune; after all, who graduates with honors _and_ their soulmate?

The years have taken more than just time from me; they've also managed to whittle down my concept of Prince Charming and the significance of the sound of two rings connecting in a six-step high-five.

My thoughts are interrupted by something crunching under my feet, and I look down to see that Eli has deemed it necessary to throw a handful of his Cheerios in Mom's path.

"Ma, ma, ma," he chants with a grin from his high chair. He has smeared banana into the curls around his face and looks immensely pleased with himself. Again.

Elliot would really like this kid, I think. If he was around enough to get to know him.

With a sigh, I lean over to pick up the remaining cereal pieces when the phone rings, and I'm contemplating letting the machine get it until I realize that Eli has been my only company for three days. Adult conversation is good.

"Stabler residence."

"Kathy, it's Don."

"Hi," I say curtly.

"Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma," Eli squeals.

"Listen…"

Don Cragen probably doesn't realize how much the tone of his voice can convey, and I'm not quite sure, but I think my heart stops. The only reason I know this is because it's happened before, Elliot loves being a cop and does it well, too well, and sometimes I wish he had been better with numbers. Being an accountant's wife might have been nice.

"What happened?" I ask, and my voice is sharp, because Don is a cop and cops can handle stuff like that.

"There's been an incident. Can you meet me at Mt. Sinai?"

My heart hasn't stopped. Or, if it did, it has restarted and is now pounding quickly to make up for last time. I hear the Cheerios crunch in my hand and am vaguely aware that I am making a fist. Elliot of yester-year stares back at me smugly from underneath his rakishly tilted graduation cap. My throat feels numb.

"I'm on my way."

*


	26. Quam horribilis est haec hora

"How awful is this hour."

"Who'll mourn her as one of Lot's family members?  
Doesn't she seem the smallest of losses to us?  
But deep in my heart I will always remember  
One who gave her life up for one single glance."  
- Akhmatova

*

Say something, she implores him silently for the seventy-third time. Say anything.

Elliot has been motionless in a hospital bed in front of her for five hours, and she has been terrified to touch him so she stands at the back of the room like a specter, staring at his pale, worn face. He really needs to open his eyes and look at her.

Kathy is beside him, one small, pale hand clutching his big one and the other constantly running over antique-looking rosary beads. When her eyes aren't on her husband's unconscious form, they're on Olivia, an equal mix of pleading and suspicion blatantly written on her face. She knows protocol does not have room for her husband's partner in his room, just like she has seemingly accepted that Olivia will not leave.

Clots, the doctor told them after surgery. He may be okay, as long as there are no clots.

Eight hours of waiting to see him had left Olivia drained, and now that he's here and almost whole, she desperately wants to slump down onto the small couch and sleep until something good happens. But he's not out of the woods and she will never forgive herself, she knows she won't, if his heart stops because of a fucking clot and she's not there to start it up again.

So she watches him, and she remembers, and then she watches Kathy, and she thinks. She's never been extremely creative, but she imagines the pain of being Elliot's wife, and imagines how much worse that pain could be if Kathy knew everything, or if she ripped Kathy out of that chair and told her to leave. I've got it from here, Olivia could say, and then she'd kick her out so she could sit and grip Elliot's hand and plead with him to open his goddamn eyes. Hell, she might even hold the rosary beads.

But these are crazy, crazy things she is thinking. Elliot would shit a brick if she ever hurt his family, and she knows and accepts this. He can kick his own dog, but no one else is allowed, and that's fine; hurting Kathy seems needlessly cruel on every other day anyway –she's too small and her skin is too delicate to truly warrant anything other than politeness and respect. And if the state of her skin wasn't enough, there is the ring on her left hand, gleaming like a talisman as proof that her place is in the chair by Elliot's bed.

After what seems like days of silence, Kathy looks up at her again, only this time, she speaks. "How are you feeling?" she asks quietly.

Despite everything, Olivia's voice is even and she's proud of that. "The baby's fine."

Kathy fidgets, switches his hand from her left to her right. "You're, uh, you're twenty-five weeks along, aren't you?"

"Twenty-six."

Kathy nods knowingly. "It goes by so fast. Enjoy it," she murmurs, brushing her lips over Elliot's hand. "Kids… they change everything."

Olivia stares at her. Please stop touching him, she thinks. She knows it's Kathy's right, it's Kathy's place, but she cannot find it within herself to be un-bothered by it.

"Kids. And family," Elliot's wife continues quietly. "It's such a cliché, but… your family becomes your whole world, when you're a mom. When I was in high school, I used to lay in bed and picture my life with El, how we would travel after he joined the Marines. All the places we would visit. And then the kids came… and then I started to fall asleep wondering how I could trip-proof our stairs for the twins." She smiles. "The best I could come up with was a slide. Or an elevator. Neither idea was very practical, so… I tried to learn to put off the worry. Dreams change. Life happens. Sometimes you have to just let them go and trust that, whatever happens, they'll be alright."

Kathy is saying something, but Olivia's not yet sure what it is, and all she can be is absolutely still as his wife's voice softly mingles with the beeping of the machines connected to his body.

"Then kids grow up. And now I just fall asleep and wonder if I've done an okay job. If I should have been more disciplined or less controlling. If I should have put my foot down with Elliot's work hours while the kids were younger… But at the end of the day, I know we did the best we could with what we had; our kids aren't perfect, but… they're good people." She holds Elliot's hand to her cheek and stares at his immobile face. "They're good people," she whispers.

Is this her fucked-up version of a parenting pep talk? she wonders silently.

And then her thoughts halt, because Kathy's eyes meet hers again and there is something there that is almost as scary as Olivia ruining this unborn child's life.

"This is my family," Kathy states quietly, and her goddamn hands are still encasing Elliot's fingers. "This man is my family. He's my kids' dad. He's my high school sweetheart. He's my husband." She swallows, and her eyes are watery and resolute. "He's my family."

The oxygen around her has thinned dramatically, because not enough is getting to her lungs and she finds herself cradling her stomach, like shielding the baby will keep her from hearing the desperation in Kathy Stabler's voice. That desperation is giving voice to some of her own worst fears at the moment, and she tries not to cringe but fuck if every nerve ending is raw and exposed and aching at the words Kathy has released into the atmosphere.

"The doctor said he should be fine, Kathy," she chokes out.

All she can hear for several seconds is his heart monitor.

"Do you really think," Kathy says dully; she clears her throat and continues. "Do you really think I'm worried about him not walking out of here?" Her smile is small, tight and bitter; it makes Olivia think of Akhmatova's _Requiem_, of cold, starving women waiting in a futile line outside of tall prison gates for just a glimpse of their husbands and sons.

"He'll be okay," she continues. "He usually is. Believe me, Olivia, over the last twenty years I've developed a healthy respect for my husband's ability to keep his heart beating. He finds ways to stay alive." She swallows before inhaling deeply and shuddering a sigh. "I don't worry about him surviving.

"I know I'm not the perfect wife, and maybe I'm not even the perfect woman for him. But he's my _husband_."

That's my partner. That's my partner. Say something, say anything.

"I've spent almost every night of the last several months wondering if he's with you, or even if he's somewhere wanting to be, and I am not—Olivia, I am not strong enough to keep living like that."

I know you, I know you. That's my partner.

"Olivia?"

The words are choked and strangled because the jig is up and she probably deserves what's coming. "Kathy, what are you saying?"

"I'm not going to ask you again if or how long you've been sleeping with him," she says in a low voice. "But I am going to ask you to keep your distance."

"Kathy—"

"Am I wrong?"

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. "Kathy—"

She sets Elliot's hand down gently onto the counterpane and stands. At her full height, she does not come past Olivia's chin, and pregnant or not, Olivia could take her. But something has happened since she saw Elliot's coat-tails hanging limply from his stretcher, and eight hours of sleep from the previous evening is not enough to put the fight back into her bones, not when she is so damn tired and Kathy knows more than is good for either of them.

"He's my _husband_."

Olivia wishes she could hate this woman. She wishes she could look at her and see someone petty and jealous, a bitter, middle-aged housewife who isn't getting enough attention. But she meets Kathy's steady gaze, and all she can see is a pretty woman, a forty-something soccer mom with big eyes who is or has been the love of Elliot's life. She sees fair skin lined with worry and love and pain, she sees someone who will not back down and meekly share this man.

She's so damned tired.

Kathy's hesitant voice intrudes on her reverie. "Olivia?"

There is a sort of blankness that has settled over her in the last several hours, and she's thankful that there is nothing more than a slight tremor in her voice as she looks into Kathy's eyes and gives her the only thing she remembers how to say with feeling.

"He's my partner," she says simply, and Kathy stares back at her with eyes that look ancient and an expression full of things akin to pity and resentment.

*

"He awake yet?"

She lifts her head away from the ceiling to look at her boss as he stands beside her chair. He looks like she feels. "No," she answers quietly. "Just needed some space. To think."

Cragen adjusts his trenchcoat and settles into the chair beside her. "How's the baby?" he asks kindly.

The baby. The baby. The baby. For just ten seconds she needs an existence where it is okay to worry about something other than this baby, she thinks irritably. The guilt that follows the thought is immediate and consuming. "She's fine."

She can practically hear his eyebrows raise. "She?"

Wearily leaning her head back against the wall, she sighs and makes small circles on her abdomen with her fingertips. "I'm having a girl."

There is a pause. And then— "Congratulations," he says quietly.

"Thanks."

He smiles.

They sit in silence until the nurse comes, smiling briefly at them before disappearing into Elliot's room. Olivia sighs, then grimaces; she's been sighing too much lately. Maybe she's having an extended, slow-motion bout of hyperventilation.

"Sometimes helps to talk about it."

Hear head turns to look at him. "What?"

"Sounds like something's on your mind."

She frowns. "You mean other than my partner in the hospital with a hole in his chest?"

His expression doesn't change, but he gestures with his head to her chair as he cracks a sunflower seed between his teeth. "Since when do you wait outside?"

"Kathy's in there," she says evenly, because the world has an order to it and Kathy's presence inside explains everything.

"Ah."

"Excuse me," says a voice from the doorway, and they both look up at the nurse. She looks uncomfortable. "Are you Olivia?"

"Yeah."

"Mr. Stabler's awake. He's asking for you."

Everything in her unclenches, and she can feel her lungs fill back up.

Awkwardly, she stands and makes her way into the hospital room. As she crosses the threshold, the swelling in her heart at the nurse's news is immediately deflated by the look on Kathy Stabler's face.

*


	27. Disjecta membra

"The scattered remains."

*

Some idols are better left untoppled.

Helen McCue had been Olivia's best friend for four whole months once, in second grade, and Olivia remembers her only because she was the only friend who never asked why she could never spend the night at the apartment Olivia shared with her mother. Instead, Olivia received ample invitations to attend various McCue family outings and a few of Helen's slumber parties, to which Olivia often had to explain as best she knew how that Serena Benson had a hard time letting her out of earshot after school.

But then.

"Do you want to come to church?" Helen asked her one Wednesday morning. "My mom said you could come with us. And we always get burgers after."

Helen looked as if she expected Olivia to refuse. And church was one of the many things Olivia had not experienced by age seven, and she was one of three students in her class that had never attended. And Serena always slept until the late afternoon on Saturdays and Sundays.

So Olivia said yes, she would love to go to church.

"Do we wear dresses?" she'd asked Helen. And Helen had smiled patiently and nodded.

Sunday morning found Olivia dressed and waiting on the front steps of her building in her red Christmas dress and her mother's Victorian Anthology of Poetry; she couldn't find a Bible.

"What is that?" Helen giggled as Olivia had climbed into the backseat of the McCue's Squire station wagon.

"It's the only book I could find."

"You can't bring just any book. You need a Bible."

Olivia shrugged. "We don't have one."

"Oh." Helen had shifted in her seat, looking slightly uncomfortable until her mother had turned around in the front seat.

"That's okay, sweetie. You can share with Helen."

Church wasn't what Olivia would have called fun, but it was new, and the little statues were interesting, and the people were nice. She listened attentively to the music and let her eyes roam the elaborately decorated sanctuary, only pausing her surveillance in the middle of the service, when everyone stood up and began shaking hands.

"Peace be with you," a teenage boy said as he gripped Olivia's fingers.

"Thank you," she replied quietly. He smiled.

Lots of people smiled at church. Olivia wasn't sure what to think about that.

After the promised post-church burgers, Olivia was dropped off in front of the large, impersonal brownstone with a second invitation to St. Augustine's and a nervous hope that her mother had not noticed her absence – a hope that was quickly obliterated as the front door quietly snicked shut.

"Where the fuck have you been?" Serena had shrieked tearfully.

"Church with Helen," Olivia had answered quickly. "Her mom said—"

"Do you have any idea what you've put me through?" her mother had hissed. "Church. Of course you were at a fucking church. You _would_ be stupid enough to want to believe in some god that can't control the shit that happens to people."

An hour and three hand-sized welts later, Olivia sat in her room, clutching the Victorian Anthology of Poetry and staring at the wall. The only thing she could hear were the muffled sounds of her mother screeching into the phone at Mrs. McCue.

Helen stopped inviting her places after that.

Olivia is not, nor has she ever been, anything close to religious; at one time, she might have claimed atheism. As it is, she is comfortably agnostic – prayer, when she bothers to pray, feels like a cathartic, last-ditch effort to appeal to the powers-that-be for things to go her way. Sometimes, it even feels silly. Especially when Elliot is the only thing she's believed in for the last decade.

Silly and stupid and whatever else she may feel, it doesn't matter, because she is sitting in the hospital's carefully non-denominational chapel, staring at a vague, inspirational pattern in the stained-glass window and mentally begging anyone or anything that happens to be listening to give her just one fucking do-over. Just one more chance to get things right, or at least acceptable. One more chance to not engage in any kind of sexual activity or emotional mindfucks with her partner. Or at least one more chance to regret it.

Time spent with Elliot has allowed her to push away doubts and worries and the stress of imminent discovery; but today, Kathy looked her dead in the eyes and Elliot wasn't awake to stop it, and Olivia's internal organs had shriveled because every level of her biology realized, finally, that it is time to pay the fucking piper.

She has no religion, but even she can recognize that some things are sacred. She's dropped her panties on holy ground, and the gods are angry.

Dusk covers the valley  
Stars slowly come into sight  
Birds chatter among the trees  
Before saying goodnight…

"Liv?"

Liv Liv Liv Liv Liv. If one more person says her name today, she will find a substantial piece of architecture and burn it to the fucking ground, she knows she will.

But she looks up, and Fin's tired demeanor instantly diffuses her initial burst of irritation; she smiles at him tightly. "Hey. How's John?"

He rolls his eyes. "He's awake. Wanted me to get him a damn ice cream cone and some weirdass conspiracy magazine."

She smiles not-as-tighly at that. "Sounds like he'll pull through."

"Yep." He settles next to her and she inhales the leather smell of his jacket. "Just saw Elliot."

Olivia says nothing; time has only improved her ability to stare at walls for interminable periods of time.

"Said to ask you to stop by again on your way out."

Her face remains carefully neutral. "Did he say why?"

"Nope."

"Oh."

"Maybe he just doesn't want to be by himself."

She looks up. "By himself?"

"Yup."

"Where's Kathy?"

"Went to pick up Eli. She'll be back later."

Later.

So she breathes a quick farewell to Fin as she hurries out of the chapel and then almost instantly, it seems, is standing outside of Elliot's room. Her belly flutters insistently, and she absently wonders if the baby can sense Elliot's nearness, or if she's just reacting to the increased speed of Olivia's heartrate.

He's your partner. He's your partner.

He's my _husband_, Kathy's voice screams at her internally.

And then she is there, and he is awake and staring at her and it's not quite as easy as it was when Kathy was sitting between them, and that strikes her as strange, that they are comfortable being themselves only when there is the chance that someone will get hurt.

"Hey," Elliot says quietly, and his voice sounds like it hasn't been used in ten years, and she's almost certain he sounded more sure of himself when he was dealing with McCluskey's handgun at his temple.

His eyes don't leave hers as she squares her shoulders and sits in Kathy's chair.

"Hey," she responds.

The only thing between them is the air, her swollen belly and more silence as they sit.

Silence.

As their wordlessness reaches its ten-minute mark, Olivia sighs and Elliot's face contorts. He closes his eyes and turns his hand palm-up on the mattress. Without a sound, she reaches across the inches and intertwines his fingers with her own.

Time doesn't just march on, it drags them behind it. She can feel the deep creases in Elliot's palm, the light dusting of hair on the top of his hand, the warmth and strength of his long, tapered fingers. If she closes her eyes she can still feel those fingers' prints on her hips, her breasts, her neck, her belly.

The only sound is her breathing, his breathing, and the beeps of the various monitors keeping track of his vital signs.

She refuses to think anything approaching the word 'love,' because that's silly. It's silly and redundant and there should be new words invented for her so she can describe how she feels about her partner. It's not love, it's not that cliched, or mushy, or enjoyable. It's something else, something exposed and painful and thorough and engulfing.

She's not connected to him by bands of gold, or vows, or goopy feelings or even by the child in her belly. There is a bundle of raw nerves running from every surface inch of her skin to every surface inch of his, and there isn't a word for that, so she just sits and thinks of how fucking sad it is that she's used up almost everything inside of her on someone who isn't hers.

There are a million physiological processes that are keeping him alive, and the fact that any one of them could have decided to give up his ghost yesterday still makes her tremble like the weepy, tragic heroine of a romance novel. It's disgusting, really, how much she relies on his heart to keep beating.

Disgusting.

The sound of his voice, raspy and uncertain and weak, breaks into her reverie, and she meets his gaze with a question on her face. "You have any answers yet?"

She blinks, and her mind draws a blank until his words kindle the memory of the last time they were in her apartment. The baby stills. "I think," she says slowly. "I think we already know the answers."

Silence.

"This isn't going to work, is it?"

Boom.

He doesn't repeat himself, and it doesn't matter, because she heard every single syllable.

"No," she answers quietly.

Beep. Breathe. Beep. Breathe.

"Why?" he asks after a moment, and when she looks back at him she realizes he is staring at the ceiling, because this is a substantive conversation and her eyes are officially a no-fly zone. His hand grips hers tightly.

"Everything," she says honestly.

Beep. Breathe. Beep. Breathe.

"Everything," he mumbles at the ceiling.

The door opens, and Olivia snatches her hand away from him like it's on fire and prepares for the onslaught of guilt from the look on Kathy's face. But it's just the night nurse.

"How are you feeling tonight, Mr. Stabler," she asks kindly.

"Fantastic," he mutters darkly.

"I doubt that," she retorts, smirking at Olivia. "But you will after this stuff kicks in."

"What is that?" he asks warily.

"This'll help with the pain," she answers. "You're going to be out for awhile."

"Is this really necessary?" he protests.

"Doctor's orders," she replies, injecting the medicine into Elliot's IV. "You'll thank me later."

A moment later, she bustles out of the room and Elliot looks back at his still-upturned palm with a frown.

Hesitantly, she places her hand back in his.

"Are you staying?" he asks, studying their hands, and she has to strain to hear him.

Is she staying? She's almost seven months pregnant and he's married to a woman who will be back shortly, Stabler offspring in tow.

This isn't going to work.

"I won't leave you alone," she promises quickly.

The grip on her hand tightens, and she can almost hear him smirk. "You gonna sing to me?"

She bites back a harsh laugh and smiles. "I don't think so."

"Just one verse?"

"Sorry."

He sighs and relaxes back onto his pillows. "Had to ask," he says, and his words are slightly slurred.

"Just rest."

A few moments pass and she studies his profile. And when his eyes open and bore into hers, they are slightly glazed and she flinches.

"You aren't ending it," he says thickly, with a confused frown. She can see the lines of his brow furrow in bewilderment. "Why not?"

Say something. Say anything.

The baby flutters within her, testing the boundaries of her womb and stretching, and Elliot unconsciously squeezes her hand. It is a moment she cannot ruin with something less than the truth.

"Because I can't," she says plainly.

His eyes hold hers for several moments and then drift shut, and she clasps his hand even tighter and stares at the wall, pondering the significance of the granite of his brow and whether or not it qualifies as an idolatrous graven image.

Kathy arrives two hours later to find Olivia uncomfortably keeping her vigil by Elliot's side; the baby is practicing tae-bo on her bladder.

"Olivia," she says by way of greeting. She doesn't look surprised to see Olivia holding her husband's hand.

"Where's Eli?"

"He's in the waiting room with my mother."

No more conversation seems to be occurring to either of them, and with a blank expression, Olivia excuses herself to the restroom and returns moments later to find that her seat has been taken. Or did Kathy simply take her seat _back_? It's hard for her to tell anymore.

"Kathy—"

"Go home, Olivia," Kathy says roughly without looking away from her husband. She sounds like she's been crying. "Get some sleep."

Several moments pass, and Olivia waits for Elliot to wake up and give her a reason to stay. But his eyes stay closed and his breathing remains even. Get some sleep, Kathy's voice echoes, but Olivia's not sure if she's repeated herself. Get some sleep.

She can hear a muffled sob as she walks down the hallway, and even with all of her senses dulled by fatigue and exhaustion, she knows from the sound that Kathy Stabler's heart has finally broken.

Thirty minutes later, her head hits the pillow and she lets the darkness engulf her.


	28. Brevis ipsa vita est sed malis fit

"Our life is short, but made longer by misfortunes." - Syrus

*

The ringing of her phone is the first thing Olivia wakes up to, and history has taught her that this is never a good thing.

"Hello?" and her voice sounds too alert.

There is a long silence, a shaky breath, and an audible swallow. "It's Kathy."

She sits up quickly, ignoring the resulting vertigo and the pain in her lumbar vertebrae. Her grip on the phone could crush through the plastic, and she'd burn her hands on the wires inside if she were just a little bit stronger. Her head is humming and her ears are ringing and she blinks rapidly to flush all traces of sleep away, and all of this is done in three seconds. "Is everything alright?"

"How soon can you get here?"

Olivia being invited to the hospital at this point can only mean so many things, and a scant three minutes later she is hailing a cab outside her apartment. Her fists keep clenching and her knuckles feel like they'll pop through her skin, so she forces her fingers to uncurl and allows them to curve around her belly as she tries to ignore the steady aching and ringing that has not left her head.

She travels through hospital hallways under a shadow, something ominous is bearing down on her shoulders and telling her to breathe faster, and her goddamn lungs and legs can only do so much.

When she crosses the threshold into Elliot's room, all she can see is that Kathy's head is in her hands beside an empty hospital bed.

Olivia can feel something dropping out from underneath her, her heart is pounding and her ears are still ringing and her temples are throbbing, but she's standing upright and her bones haven't shattered yet, and she hears someone else use a hard voice that sounds a bit like hers to ask, "Where's Elliot?"

And then Kathy looks at her from across the vacant bed and she knows.

Everything in her stills.

"He's gone," she hears herself state flatly.

He's gone he's gone he's gone he's gone he's gone.

The shadow on her shoulders digs its talons into her skin and she gasps, "Where?"

Kathy holds onto the bedrails for a moment, staring at the pillows before she suddenly collapses onto the floor and screams, and Olivia flinches at the sound. She feels a tugging on her arm, and she looks down to see a little girl in a red Christmas dress, pulling on her hand. Through the piercing shrieks of Elliot's widow, she hears the child's voice.

"Where are we going now?"

"What?" Olivia gasps.

"He's gone. Where are _we_ going?"

Where are we going?

He's gone so there' s nowhere to go, and doesn't everyone know that? So she stares blankly at the little girl and tries to formulate reasons and answers until the ringing in her ears intensifies and fragments and becomes more familiar.

"Elliot!" she gasps as her eyes fly open to the sunlight. The ringing ceases and she hears her answering machine pick up.

"This is Olivia Benson. Please leave a message."

Fuck.

It takes her a moment to shake herself free from the cold, misty fingers of her nightmare, so she only catches the end of Cragen's message.

"...with Elliot and John recovering, so your presence at work today would be helpful."

The numbers of the alarm clock are screaming that it's 11:31 AM, and she mutters something that she'll never, ever allow her daughter to say before climbing out of bed as quickly as she is able and pulling on her ugly-ass maternity jeans.

*

His need for warm bodies in the squadroom notwithstanding, Cragen has not issued her a reprieve from desk-duty and she is chomping at the bit by 2:00. Fin and some green-ass new detective named Brunner are going back down to the hospital to interview a recently-conscious McCluskey and she feels like a pouty, petulant eight-year-old when Cragen issues the assignment with a pointed glance at her that says Not So Fast and Stay Put.

She hates getting left behind. Fucking uterus.

The baby moves, and Olivia automatically reaches to feel her daughter's movement. I didn't mean that, she thinks apologetically. This isn't your fault.

Her shoulders feel like they'll collapse whenever she thinks of Elliot, or Kathy, or Elliot and Kathy, so she turns off all higher brain functions and relies on muscle memory to finish filling out DD5's whose necessity she has not had the pleasure of incurring. She also comes close to enjoying herself by mentally tabulating just how much Fin and John and Elliot will owe her for the next decade for doing their paperwork. She won't be able to drink anything until she's done nursing, but when that day comes…

She snaps out of her reverie. When that day comes, she has no idea what life will be like. She and Elliot have seen to that.

Despite the occasional sidetrack into Things She Doesn't Want to Think About, she develops a quiet rhythm as the afternoon begins to hum by, and she is taking a break to stare at Elliot's empty coffee mug when she is interrupted.

"Excuse me," says a hesitant voice.

Olivia looks up, scanning the woman's petite form. She's small and blond and pale with delicate features and huge brown eyes that are watery and red. She looks terrified. "Can I help you?"

"Um, yeah. I'm looking for Detective Stabler."

"Detective Stabler will be out of the office for awhile," she replies coolly. "Can I help you?"

"Oh… I'm—I don't know, the man out front said Detective Stabler was the one handling my husband's case, so...."

Olivia frowns. "What's your husband's name?"

"Daniel McCluskey."

*

Five minutes later, Olivia has commandeered an officer and his squad car to take her and the now-hysterical Mrs. McCluskey to the hospital.

"He told me, he swore to me that he didn't do it, and I didn't believe him!" the blond woman sobs into her fist. "I left, I took Katie, I changed my cell phone number, I've been in a hotel in Newark, I didn't want to talk to him--"

"He's going to be fine, Dana," Olivia says from the front with a slight scowl. God help her but at the moment she can feel nothing but mild annoyance at the young woman's theatrics, which in turn causes annoyance at herself for lacking basic human compassion. You don't have to be raped by a rapist to be a rapist's victim, she repeats to herself. Possible victim, possible victim. Be nice. "Just take deep breaths."

But apparently, Take Deep Breaths means Please Cry Louder when one is addressing Dana McCluskey, and she continues to devolve into tearful agitation as Olivia fights to stay in command of her hormones. Don't you do it, she thinks sternly to the milk glands in her breasts. This woman does not need to be nursed, she needs to see her husband who may or may not have raped two fifteen-year-old girls. And then she needs a divorce lawyer. And then she needs counseling. But she most definitely does not need to be—

Shit.

"Detective Benson?" the young officer asks anxiously as Olivia barely stifles a groan. She buttons the front of her peacoat and prays that the two wet spots emerging on the front of her shirt won't seep through the wool of her jacket.

"I'm fine."

"No ma'am. I meant, we're here."

*

Olivia sails into the hospital room behind Dana McCluskey, and the look on Fin's face is priceless.

"Cap know you're here?" he asks in the same tone one would use to say, "Does mom know you're not in bed?"

Daniel McCluskey's eyes widen as he recognizes his wife, and his mouth opens and closes weakly as she rushes to his side to clutch his hand. Olivia grimaces at the déjà vu and looks at Fin.

"This is Dana McCluskey, she's his wife," she explains quietly as they move away from the McCluskeys. "She came down to the station first."

Fin looks incredulous. "She didn't hear her husband was shot?"

"She—"

"I left town for a couple of days," Dana interrupts. Fin stares at her.

"No one from the hospital contacted you?"

"I changed my cell number." Her face crumples again and Olivia braces herself. "I just didn't want to be a part of it anymore."

"Part of what?" Olivia asks.

"Just—all of it! Two cops kept asking me all of these questions, about Daniel's past, about our sex lives… they said that he raped two teenage girls and I just… I just couldn't deal with it."

"So you left."

"Yeah," she admits quietly. "I probably shouldn't have. But you don't know what it's like," she cries, staring pleadingly at Olivia. "To think your husband, the father of your child, could do… could be a _rapist_?"

"Did you ever ask him if he was guilty?"

"Olivia," Fin warns.

"We're not in a court of law. I'm asking her a question," she mutters. "Mrs. McCluskey."

Dana is staring at her hands. "I asked him," she says quietly. "The day I left."

"What did he say?"

She looks up then, and her eyes are cold. "He said if I had to ask then I didn't know him at all."

"Is that all he said?"

"I started to pack mine and Katie's things and he just… he went crazy. He kept swearing he wasn't guilty." Her voice breaks and she looks down again. "And begging me not to leave."

"But you didn't believe him."

"I didn't know what to believe! I just needed some space. So I went to Newark."

"Do you have family there?"

Dana hesitates, and Olivia struggles not to let her eyes narrow. "No," she says finally. "I don't know anyone in Newark."

"Uh huh. And who is Katie with now?"

"I left her with a friend of the family."

"In Newark."

Dana frowns. "No, Brooklyn."

"Did you choose Newark for a specific reason?"

"I just needed to get away. You know what that's like, right? When something just happens and you need some space? Some time to clear your head and think things through?"

Mental images of Elliot in her bed and Elliot in a hospital bed flash in juxtaposition in her brain, and she blinks and refocuses on the woman in front of her.

"No," she replies, and her voice is ten degrees cooler.

*

"That woman is lying."

Fin mashes the elevator button and looks at her. "McCluskey's wife?"

No, Fin, the nurse. "Before he was shot, McCluskey said his wife left with their daughter, but _he_ said she told him that she wanted out before that. She just needed an excuse. Besides, did you see how she reacted when I asked her about relatives in Newark?"

"Don't mean she's committed a crime," Fin says with a shrug. "I wouldn't admit to having family in Jersey, either."

"What about when she mentioned their sex lives?"

He pauses. "She said 'lives.'"

"Exactly. How many married couples talk about their individual sex lives?"

"Coulda been a slip."

"Maybe."

"We'll look into it."

"See if there's any history of infidelity. And let's pull up their credit card statements. I want to see exactly what she spent in Newark."

"Hold up, now we're investigating the wife?"

"Something in her story doesn't make sense. She didn't mention anything about being unhappy in her marriage and he did. We just need to rule out any discrepancies in their stories."

"Captain's not gonna like this."

"By the time he finds out, I'll be safely back at my desk working on your damn DD5's."

He grins and nods. "Sounds good. I'll get Brunner to take Mrs. McCluskey back to the station."

"You're not going back?"

"I'm gonna drop in on my partner to see when he plans on getting his lazy ass back to work."

She chuckles. "Tell him I said hi."

"Will do. You goin' to see Elliot?"

Olivia shakes her head no at the exact moment she decides to actually do so. It occurs to her, as she surreptitiously makes her way to Elliot's room, that her lie has given her something in common with the small blond woman with no family in Newark.

She finds herself outside of Elliot's room and leans against the wall next to the door, cradling her belly and begging the baby to kick some common sense into her. From the hallway, she can hear the low murmur of voices and even some laughter. Kathy and the kids are here, and it seems Elliot already has enough visitors.

One of the nurses recognizes her and starts to say something, and Olivia chickens out and hurries back down the hallway. The little girl in her belly flutters in protest, and Olivia makes a mental note to teach her daughter How To Not Insinuate Yourself Into Other People's Families as soon as possible.

*

She has another dream about her partner dying, but this time Kathy's not there and the look on Elliot's face as he passes into the Great Hereafter lets Olivia know exactly where he places the blame.

When the nightmare lets her go, she clutches the pillow from the other side of the bed and lies awake until sunrise, staring blankly at the wall and wondering where it all went wrong.

*


	29. Auribus tenere lupum

Can I give shout-outs? Because if I can, then I want to give shout-outs to the following people:  
- Everyone who leaves reviews. I love you.  
- Everyone who leaves long reviews. I heart you.  
- Everyone who copies and pastes in their reviews. Marry me.  
- Everyone who is still reading this. Thanks for sticking around!

"I hold a wolf by the ears." - Terence

*

She ventures back into the hospital after staring at it from across the street for ten minutes. The main entrance looks about as welcoming as the gaping jaws of a legendary sea monster.

Just to visit John, she thinks, and it's a mantra by the time she gets to the elevators. Just to visit John.

To her surprise, John's room is occupied by someone else, and the nurse informs her that Fin picked him up earlier in the day. She smirks as she pictures John loudly debunking the History Channel from the couch while Fin crankily bitches about the noise and makes soup for his convalescent partner. Those two deserve each other, she thinks to herself. But then again, she has good reason to believe that Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle Dumb-Ass think the same of her and Elliot.

Elliot.

"Do you know when the guy in 5536 will be discharged?" she asks the nurse quietly.

"You were here the other day, right?" another nurse asks, and Olivia sees that her name is Cindy and curses inwardly. Cindy needs to mind her own business.

She clears her throat awkwardly. "Yeah, I didn't… he was with his family."

Cindy smiles sweetly for no apparent reason and is automatically, in Olivia's head, now a suspect for some vague crime against humanity. "I'm sure he wouldn't have minded. He asked the night nurse if you'd been by."

"Oh."

The first nurse squints at her computer screen. "Room 5536… if that's the guy I'm thinking of then…" she brightens. "Stabler. He's being discharged today," she supplies. And then she is off to the other side of the desk and Olivia is alone with The Nurse Who Sees Too Much. She quickly excuses herself and walks down the hallway, ignoring the heaviness that drags her feet on the floor with every step.

When she arrives, Elliot is sitting up in his bed, poking the area near the hole in his own torso with a grimace.

Ass.

"If you bust your own stitches, I'm not calling the nurse," she says lamely, and his head shoots up and their eyes meet and she loses every nerve she's ever had. Fuck him, anyway. He's the one dumb enough to get himself shot.

His expression is one-part Pointed and two-parts Tight-Ass. "Nice of you to stop by."

She walks further into the room and it smells of hospitals and something more, something like the crib smells after Elliot doesn't make his bed and still has morning breath. "You look better."

"Thanks."

"How are you feeling?"

"Like someone shot me," he scowls. "And where the hell have you been, anyway? I was starting to think you'd forgotten I was in here."

Something inside of her makes her face wince, and she hopes he doesn't catch it. "Yeah, well… things have been busy."

"Work?"

"Yeah." Work. Talk to him about work. "McCluskey's wife is back."

It works. Elliot almost visibly perks, and his eyes narrow as he shifts from Cranky, Neglected Patient to Cop With A Bone to Chew, and all of a sudden he is her partner with whom she shares her theories and all is right with the world. "Since when?"

"Yesterday."

"Four days after her husband was shot. Who called her?"

"No one. She came by the precinct looking for you. Had no idea he was even in the hospital."

"What'd she want at the station?"

"She was looking for her husband and was told you were handling his case. I brought her here to see him. Fin and I and asked her some questions."

"And?" he prods.

"There's a couple things in her story that don't add up."

He frowns. "Like what?"

"Like why she hasn't mentioned any previous marital problems. Especially in light of what McCluskey said to you and John…"

"Before we all got shot," he finishes.

Her gaze doesn't waver. "Yeah."

Elliot sighs and leans back into the pillows. "You want to sit down?" She does, and he continues to prod his ribcage.

"Don't do that," Olivia instructs absently, and he lets his hand drop back to his side, his face still frozen in concentration.

"So what else?"

"Little things. Wouldn't tell us why she went to Newark to get some space. And there could be the possibility of an affair."

He freezes, and she realizes why. And then she freezes. Adultery has become a hot-button topic in the last several weeks.

She is focusing on relaxing the muscles around her cervical vertebrae when he finally speaks. "Let's pull the LUDS on her phone. And get a copy of her credit card statement."

"Fin's doing that right now."

"Good."

His eyes meet hers and, for a second – awkward adulterous references aside – they are not Elliot and Olivia, Relationship Fuck-Up Extraordinaires. Instead, she is Benson and he is Stabler and they're on the same frequency again. It's nice, and she can feel herself relax a little more because the future doesn't look so bleak if she can count on being able to look at Elliot without thinking about him between her legs. Maybe all of this, what they've done, can be undone. And nobody will be the wiser but her and her half-empty bed.

Elliot's eyes drop from hers to her belly. "How is she?"

She can't help the small grin that takes over her face. "She's good," she replies. "Active."

"Right now?" She nods, and then stills as he reaches out his good arm. "Can I?"

She nods again, slowly, and stands so he can place his palm against the surface that envelopes her daughter's form. He flexes his fingers slightly, and the baby quiets momentarily before releasing a flurry of movement.

"Active's right," he chuckles. "You'll be lucky if she decides not to roundhouse kick her way out of there."

"Here's hoping," she says weakly. The thought of the impending birth makes her tense with anxiety, makes her think of the time she went on a rollercoaster and decided halfway up the incline that she wanted off, but no one heard her and she had to do the steep drop anyway.

"Where's Kathy?" she asks after a moment, cringing as the words leave her mouth. The small smile on Elliot's face is replaced by tension as his brow creases.

"She went home to get the couch ready," he explains after a moment.

"The couch?"

He shrugs, wincing at the movement. "Doctor said I shouldn't do stairs for awhile."

"Ah."

There doesn't seem to be much else to say, since Olivia can't figure out a way to work 'Hey, does your wife know we slept together? Or does she think we're just too close in general?' into the conversation. And she's still a little bit Benson at the moment, so it probably won't come out right, anyway.

The silence drags on, and the awkwardness is a monster in the corner growing larger with each passing second.

"Well, I'd better get going—" she says.

At the same time he asks, "Hear d from Kurt?"

What?

"No," she answers quickly.

As he says, "Oh."

The monster in the corner now occupies one half of the room.

"I, uh, I'm not really trying to hear from him," she explains quietly. "He's made it pretty clear where he is on the whole fatherhood thing."

Elliot's brow creases again, thoughtfully now, and she braces herself. "People change."

Her eyebrow arches. "Do they?"

"I wasn't ready for Maureen," and she imagines he would shrug if he didn't have a hole in his chest. "But I got ready. Maybe he just needs some time."

Time. The one thing she doesn't have.

There is an insecurity that lives somewhere in the pit of her stomach, the one that says she's unloved and unlovable and has thunder thighs, and it rears it's head and explains Elliot's words. Since when is he a fan of Kurt's? it hisses. He's giving himself an out. If you have Kurt, he can have Kathy. Everybody wins but you, and it's because you'll have Kurt and he'll have Kathy…

Irrational. Unhealthy. Insecure. Shut up, she tells herself.

"Maybe," she replies. "It doesn't make much of a difference."

"Not now," he concedes. "But it could."

"Why are you worrying about it?" she asks with a scowl.

Elliot frowns again. "Every kid should have a chance to know their father," he says quietly.

His words are sincere, and she knows he doesn't mean anything other than, Maybe Kurt Shouldn't Be Dead to You Yet. But still.

"I wouldn't know," she rejoins coldly.

It takes him two seconds to realize the reason for the change in her demeanor, and he grimaces. "I didn't mean—"

"Sure you didn't," she snaps. "But I didn't ever know my dad, so how the hell am I supposed to know that not knowing the guy's kind of a big deal?"

"Olivia, you know that's—"

"And what's with the sudden support for Kurt, anyway? Did I miss something?"

"You know I can't stand the guy," he snaps. "But what I think isn't the issue—"

And maybe it's the hormones. But it's probably not the hormones, it's probably the anger that has been building up inside of her since the night she handed him his necktie and watched him scurry out of her bedroom, and now Elliot is lying there looking at her like he used to. Like he's getting ready to fix her life and she fucking hates that look and all of a sudden she sees red and she wants to throttle him until he does everything she wants him to do and likes it. "You're absolutely right. You should probably save your energy to run your own family."

That sinks in and she sees the change in his face when it hits home.

Elliot scowls. "Olivia," he says wearily, scrubbing down his face with his good hand. "Just wait one second—"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Elliot, but I don't think my situation should be your first priority right now."

"Don't you dare talk to me about priorities," he snaps.

"Don't talk to me about how I should run my life," she retorts hotly. "You have enough goddamn problems of your own without trying to fix mine."

"Then fix them yourself," he says loudly, and she begins to worry about people overhearing. The beeping of his heart monitor speeds up and, furious or not, she'll feel guilty if he survives being shot only to die of a heart attack because of his own damn stubbornness.

"Elliot, calm—"

"No," he bellows, and he's not at Maximum Elliot Capacity yet so it's not as loud as she knows he wants it to be, but she feels she's being screamed at. "Listen to me. We're partners. I _know_ exactly how I've fucked up my life, and I don't need you to tell me about my priorities or that it's none of my business how you manage yours.

"You want to know if I have answers, I don't have any fucking answers, not for this. And I don't know what the hell _this_ is, but I'm in it. And I'm trying to be in it by being honest and telling you that the _fuckface_ editor you picked up might deserve another chance to know this kid. Or at least she might want to know him—" he breaks off, panting, and there is a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Her eyes roam his face. "'Elliot—'"

"Don't," he interrupts, gasping. "I don't think I can do this now."

"I'm—"

"Not now," he says again, and his breathing is slightly slower but he's still pale from exertion. "I'm tired of fighting with you."

"Elliot, just—"

He holds up his hand to stop her. "Look, I promise I'll fight with you later. Just give it a rest."

And it's a promise she knows he'll keep, so she folds her hands over her belly and sits with him in silence until looking at him feels like looking in a mirror of misery.

After what seems like hours, a nurse comes in to tell him that Kathy is filling out his discharge papers. And Olivia leaves.

*

That night, her restless sleep is interrupted by more Braxton-Hicks contractions, and she clutches herself as the pangs move throughout her abdomen. Mild cramping my ass, she thinks bitterly as they eventually subside, and she relaxes. She looks to her right as a reflex and then curses herself. Of course her moaning hasn't disturbed anybody, because the pillows on the other side of the bed are still fluffed from when she fixed them last.

Elliot is home now. She wonders if he's sleeping or if he's staring at the ceiling again. She wonders if he's wondering what she's doing.

Then she mutters something profane before rolling over and attempting to sleep. Pull yourself the fuck together, she screams at herself inwardly.

Eventually she falls into a fitful doze, and she only wakes up once to reach for Elliot before disappointment and slumber pull her back, back away from the side of the bed that he's slept on.


	30. Sotto voce

30 chapters ... good grief!

However, I have a point. And I'll take my sweet damn time getting there!

Thanks again to all the reviewers. You make my day! Also, if anyone has anything to ask/say that you don't want to put up on the review wall, just drop me a note at .

"Soft voice"

*

It is almost six o'clock in the morning, and Olivia takes advantage of the rarity of lying on her back to stare at the popcorn ceiling and sort out her life.

Too much has happened in the last seven months, and lately she's been feeling a little like George Bailey with a uterus. She thinks back to a year ago, to her easy routine and simple priorities. The biggest complication in her life was figuring out how to navigate the minefields of Elliot Stabler's psyche.

Some things, she reflects acidly, never fucking change.

But then everything else did change. There is an ADA lying in wait for her, somewhere in this city, impatiently enthusiastic about discussing baby names. There is a man with a bullet wound in his chest who has shared her bed and betrayed three people in doing so who is probably on his couch in Queens watching reruns of The Cosby Show. There is a boss who is chomping at the bit to send her home from work each day because he is tired of his detectives getting fucked up by life, and because he holds a deep-rooted conviction that Olivia will sit down the wrong way and go into labor in the squadroom.

There is a newspaper editor who is living his life in the Manhattan singles scene, blissfully neglectful of the fact that she is old and bloated and hatching his progeny.

And there is a girl, a baby, sleeping fitfully in her womb.

Serena Benson had stated, often and forcefully, that pregnancy was the ultimate invasion, and she'd said it so many times that even the thought of unprotected sex gave Olivia something akin to an anxiety attack. Olivia chooses to believe that her mother loved her in some way, but the resentment that permeated Serena's thoughts on pregnancy was always apparent. But then the condom broken, and now that Olivia is in the delicate way she's expected to feel violated, possessed, or imprisoned by her the baby's demands. But the Serena Gene must have called in sick the day Olivia was conceived because all she can feel about the actual person inside of her is relief and excitement.

Things change a whole fucking lot.

Thoughts of her mother shadow her perspective and suck her into melancholy, so she abandons dwelling on the past and focuses on the future for several blissful moments.

She wonders what her daughter looks like, who she'll grow into. If she'll have her eyes or Kurt's. If she'll be tall and lanky like Olivia and Kurt, or petite like Serena. If she'll like Barbies or Legos, or both. If she'll be right-handed, left-handed or ambidextrous. If she'll want to learn a musical instrument.

If she'll be okay without a dad. If she'll learn to hate Olivia for choices that are looming on the approaching horizon.

Olivia sits up slowly and rests against the backboard, frowning in contemplation. Please don't hate me, baby girl, she thinks. And since she's gotten used to her occupant responding to these soundless conversations with at least a flutter; the stillness in her womb is unsettling.

She lightly taps her belly. "Hey in there," she whispers.

Nothing.

After a two-second debate with herself on the merits of fetal napping versus her need to get this off her chest, she thumps her stomach. "Alright, little girl. Time to get up." Thump, thump.

And then there is movement.

Finally. She can feel the grin break out on her face. "Good morning," she croons, or tries to, but her voice cracks with sleep. It is a pink and grey dawn outside, and she figures that's probably best. She can never really manage to hold an audible conversation with her belly in the sunlight.

"Okay," she starts, and she hates how hesitant it sounds.

Grow up, a voice inside of her commands. This is your kid. It's not like you're talking to yourself.

Here goes nothing.

"Alright, look," she says, and her voice is stronger. "I need you to just… just listen up for a second."

Good one, the voice in her head says again. Where else is she gonna go?

"First of all I…uh, I'm sorry if I'm not going to be good at this whole thing. This mom thing."

She takes the answering flutter in her stomach as affirmation.

"I know you don't get what I'm saying right now, but, um…. You're going to get older and go to school someday," she continues steadily. "And I'll bet a lot of your friends are going to be different than what you're used to, with their families and where they live and… just stuff. And I know you'll be smart, and you'll figure that out real quick, and I just… I just need you to know, somehow, why life is going to be the way it is. Or the way I think it will be. Does that make sense?"

Silence.

"See, some girls, when they're growing up, they go to school and get boyfriends. And then their boyfriends turn into fiances, and then husbands, and all of a sudden, there's a honeymoon and a house with a white picket fence. And the girl may or may not have a job, but she definitely has kids and knows how to cook. And then the girl and the guy raise those kids on homecooked meals, and they get a dog and a running stroller and their family looks perfect. And that's how, apparently, I'm supposed to do this.

"But I never really wanted that, you know? The girls at my school, they'd talk about their dream dates and their dream weddings and I… I just never felt like being included in the conversation. Not that I dreamt of being alone," she adds hastily. "But my mom – your grandmother – never really made guys seem like a necessity. So I got used to feeling like I could do everything alone if I had to. But I still kept an eye out, just in case.

"And then college came and my career came and then I was thirty without anybody… and I realized that I would probably have to get used to the idea of being alone for awhile. But that was okay, because work has kind of always been my thing, you know? I got my promotion and transferred to Special Victims, and I started working with Elliot – you know him – and my life kind of settled into this routine. Just work, and some dating, but mostly… work."

Saying his name has ripped something open, and she swallows, hard. "Elliot is real special to me, little girl," she says softy. "You know that. But he's got a whole other life that he can't just give up. He's got five kids – he's an incredible father—"

And then she's done, because any farther and she'll be completely raw and sad and have to call in sick today. She clears her throat and pushes forward. "Look, the point to all of this is that I'm sorry if the stuff I've chosen, or the things I've done… I'm sorry if I've made your life harder than it'll need to be. There's just…" and the moisture in her eyes builds with frustrating speed. "There just aren't a lot of people around to tell me how to do this.

"I'll be better at the cooking thing someday, maybe. But we'll probably end up eating take-out too. And right now it looks like you won't have a dad. Or a dog, because of the whole apartment thing. And I'm going to do my best. I promise… but I have a feeling that it won't always be good enough, and if it isn't… I'm sorry. Just, please know that now. And don't hate me when it happens."

Silence.

"Did you get any of that?" she whispers.

Several heavy seconds go by while Olivia lets her words permeate the room. The dawn is fading quickly and she feels very, very silly.

Suddenly, from the depths of her body, there is an answering kick.

"Good girl," she sighs, and wraps her arms around herself until her clock sounds the alarm.

*

"Elliot and John are fine," she says to Casey, by way of greeting.

The redhead closes her mouth. "Good. I ordered you some tea, hope that's okay."

When Olivia's daughter is old enough, she's going to stay with a sitter while Olivia goes into a diner to drink gallons of coffee and eat disgusting, greasy things before going to a bar and drinking her weight in vodka.

But all of that is years away, so she nods. "That's good, thanks," she says, starting to slide into the booth. And then there is a problem. "Uh…"

Alarmed, Casey looks up from her coffee. "What's wrong?"

Olivia rolls her eyes, gesturing to the lack of space between the seat and table. The baby has required yet another preference adjustment. Booths are a thing of the past. "You mind if we grab a table instead?"

"Oh."

Five minutes later, they are seated at a two-top. After placing their orders, Casey does the unthinkable and pulls a thick book out of her briefcase with a grin.

Even the bridge of Olivia's nose feels bloated as she grips it between her thumb and index finger . "Baby names? Really?"

"Yes. Baby names. Really."

She sighs. "You said this was a working lunch."

"It is. You're twenty-eight weeks along. You need to have some names for this kid, and since you refuse to know the gender," she says with a scowl, "the least you can do is have two names ready, either way."

"Look—"

"Trust me, you do not want to go with some random shit that your post-partum brain will spit out. That's how I have a cousin named Daisy LouAnn."

Olivia winces. "Ugh. Can she read?"

"She can read her name, and that's enough. She still hasn't forgiven her parents. My point is, it's important to have something picked out in advance, so," she slides the book across the table. "Just look."

"If it's a girl, I've been thinking about 'Kennedy,'" Olivia supplies, stirring her tea.

Casey shakes her head. "No. I didn't pay for that book just so you could pull something out of your ass." She grabs the book and flips through the first several pages. "Okay, boy names first. How do you feel about something old-fashioned?"

"How old-fashioned?"

Casey looks at her cautiously. "Oliver?"

"You want me to have a kid named Oliver?"

"Just checking," she shrugs.

"You do know my name is Olivia, right?"

"I get it," Casey mutters. "We'll keep looking."

"Let's start with girl names instead," Olivia suggests tentatively. "Those might be easier."

For a moment, Casey stares at her as her eyes narrow slowly. "Okay." She flips through the book some more and stops. "Hannah?"

"No."

"Heather?"

"No."

"Holly?"

Olivia shakes her head. "No H-names."

"Why?"

She shrugs. "It's just a thing I have."

"Um… ok. Isabella?"

She wrinkles her nose. "Too girly."

"You could shorten it. To Bella. Or Belle. It means 'beautiful' in Italian. Well, I guess 'Belle' could be French—"

"No thanks."

"Juliette?"

"Ugh, no. Who published that name book, anyway? Harlequin?"

Casey smirks and flips several pages over. "Marie."

"Too Bronx."

"Sarah."

"No."

"Tina."

"No."

"Louisa."

Olivia rolls her eyes. "Be joking. Please."

"I am. Let's see… mmm, how about Misty?"

"That's great, Novak. Maybe for her fourth birthday I can buy her some pole-dancing lessons and a pair of glitter boots."

"Olivia—" she sighs.

"I'm sorry, do we really have to do this now?"

"'This' as in baby names?" the redhead asks incredulously.

"Yes."

Casey sits back. Her expression is thoughtful, and Casey is more perceptive than some people so Olivia braces herself. "Odd request from the mom-to-be."

She's not a girl who misses much, Paul McCartney's voice whispers in Olivia's head. She stares back at Casey and wills herself not to blink. "I'm just breaking all sorts of molds."

"You haven't really seemed like yourself lately," Casey continues as if Olivia hasn't spoken. "Is there something going on that you haven' t told me?"

If you only knew, Olivia thinks dryly, rolling her eyes. "Everything's fine."

"Fin said you and Elliot aren't playing nice."

Her head snaps up from her soup. "What the hell?"

Casey shrugs. "My office is downtown, I get dirt any way I can."

"I don't remember you being this into office gossip before," Olivia retorts acidly

"I wasn't a de facto godmother before. Is everything okay?" She lowers her voice. "He seemed cranky when I talked to him. Is it Kathy? How's his marriage?"

"Casey!"

The chatter immediately around them diminishes for a moment, and Olivia exhales and reminds herself that Now is not the time for this. For any of it.

She's been trying to Deepak Chopra her way through the shit she's brought down on herself, and maybe telling Casey about Elliot would help but it would probably just make things worse. Not to mention the fact that Elliot will rip her limb from limb if Olivia reveals the seedy underbelly of his happy, suburbanite family man existence to anyone.

"Never mind," Casey says in a tone that could best be described as placatory. She raises her hands in a gesture of surrender. "I just know how he gets."

"This has nothing to do with him," Olivia states flatly. "You think I should act more excited about having this baby."

Casey's gaze is unapologetic. "Is that unheard of?"

For a moment, Olivia floats out of her body and listens to the quiet cacophony of eating utensils tapping on formica, of ice cubs clinking within their glasses, of the murmur of conversation surrounding them. How many of these people have done something truly, truly heinous, she wonders absently.

"Olivia?"

"Sorry," she replies, shaking herself back into her body. "I _am_ excited. Really. It's just… well, it's just been a long couple of weeks."

Casey takes a bite of her food and doesn't blink. She looks unconvinced. "Okay," she says, and her tone reeks of momentary defeat. "You're stressed. I get it." A pause. "So how's the nursery coming?"

Olivia breathes a sigh of relief, ignoring the regret that threatens to form at the fact that she has once again shot down Casey's overtures of real friendship, and that the most substantive conversation she's had lately has been with her in utero daughter.

She takes a deep breath and re-enters the conversation, embracing the fact that she's momentarily not alone. Besides, she tells herself, it's good to practice being normal.

And maybe it's the tea, or the soup, or her nerves, but the flutters inside her seem to agree.

*


	31. Locus desperatus

"A desperate passage"

*

"From soul to soul the shortest line  
At best will bended be:  
The ship that holds the straightest course  
Still sails the convex sea."

- John Boyle O'Reilly

*

The sky is a shroud.

There is a crash, a blow, something rips open in front of him and he thinks of three things.

First, keep both lungs inside his body.

Second, Kathy, carefree and laughing underneath his roving fingers after he finds her in the linen closet during a family game of Hide and Seek.

Third, Olivia.

Olivia.

Olivia.

And then the onyx of her eyes is seeping, spreading, suffocating him, until her face is blacked out and all he can see is the sky.

*

The sky has disappeared.

The world is black and white and brown.

There is a spot by the front door that creaks whenever any weight is placed on it, and he's tried seven times over the last fourteen years to fix it. It still creaks.

He's not sure exactly what happened in the last decade, but somehow he's gone from full-time handyman/breadwinner who could do a seven-minute-mile in a trench coat to a middle-aged invalid on his couch. He has spent the last four days watching baseball on mute and cataloguing everything about his house that is broken or falling apart, and his brain has become exponentially more perceptive, now that most of its external stimuli has been taken away.

He has failed at almost everything. Marriage, fatherhood, home maintenance, his career – Cragen informed him last week that he's only barely eligible for promotion at the rate his jacket has filled up and Elliot had winced slightly before realizing that the reflex was just an old habit. People who can't change don't wince, he decided. And he is definitely stuck. Stuck in failure.

His faith. His partnership. Oh, and bullet-proofing his skin. Don't forget about that one.

Failed. Stuck. Trapped on a shitty couch thinking about all of his fuck-ups and a woman he works with.

A woman he works with. _The_ woman he works with.

He suspects the only reason they haven't completely imploded is because they are operating within the confines of extreme secrecy and two busy schedules. Their time together has been carefully rationed to them, and they've spent most of it with their pants off. They're bowling with bumpers.

He has not spoken to Olivia in four days, and seven days ago this would have been unacceptable and he would have called her or – hell, why not? – shown up at her apartment to find out what was wrong.

The floorboard by the front door creaks, and he shifts his head uncomfortably to try to see who has just come in. He sees a flash of blond in his periphery and settles back down.

"I'm back," Kathy announces quietly.

The sound of her footsteps grows louder as she approaches him, and he opens his eyes to see her sitting on the edge of the coffee table. Her eyes are guarded, but her smile is warm. "How are you feeling?"

He tries to smile back reassuringly. It feels like a grimace. "Fantastic."

Kathy rolls her eyes and her smile is still there, slight and small, but it's something genuine and it soothes him. She doesn't show her teeth. "You wouldn't happen to be acquainted with Elliot Stabler, would you?" she asks dryly. "Because the way you're pretending not to be in any pain reminds me of him."

He almost laughs at that one.

"Eli still down?" she asks, glancing at the monitor beside him.

"Yep."

"Sit tight," she commands, standing up. Like he's going anywhere. "I'll be back."

Moments later, she is back with a lukewarm glass of water and two white pills. "Your painkillers," she explains. "Here."

He'd handed Olivia her iron supplements and watched her gulp them down, and pregnant or not she'd looked like a little girl with sleep in her eyes and rays of the streetlights caressing her naked skin. And he'd thought of mazes, and how he'd dead-ended in his life for the moment, but it was with her and he thought that might have been worth not finding a way out. He could live in a labyrinth, if it kept everyone else out.

But then Kathy holds her hand back out to him, and he stares at her blankly for a moment before realizing she is waiting to be handed the empty glass. And the tightness in his chest has nothing to do with a bullet wound or sutures.

"Can I sit with you?" she asks quietly, and he nods.

She helps him sit up and then pulls him back down, onto her lap and there's too much space between the flat of her stomach and her thighs. He'd slept in Olivia's lap the night before McCluskey lost his shit, and he'd spent the majority of his time waking up seconds before his head rolled off her knees. The baby took up more and more of his space these days.

"Do you want the sound on?"

Silence has become more and more dangerous for them, so he gives his assent.

So she turns up the volume and they sit and listen to the sportscaster call plays in between beer commercials as Kathy's hand absently toys with his right earlobe. He sighs; it's always been something she's done and he'd loved it. And now it just makes him sad, because he dreams about things like living in a labyrinth and leaving her in a house with a creaky floor.

"Cragen called today," she says after two innings pass in silence. His head shifts so he can see her face.

"What'd he say?"

"Wanted to check in. See how you were."

Oh. "What'd you tell him?"

She sighs. "I told him we expected you to be back to work as soon as physically possible. Maybe sooner."

He frowns. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing serious," she shrugs. "But I know you miss being there."

He shrugs with one shoulder. "They're shorthanded."

"So are you. Literally."

"It's not that bad."

"Elliot, you're recovering. From a gunshot wound. To the _chest_," Kathy says pointedly. "They'll figure out their staffing issues."

He sighs.

"Unless…" and marriage and common sense has taught him that her decreasing volume does not bode well for the conversation. "Unless it's not really about them being shorthanded."

Shots fired. Shots fired.

"Kath—"

Her eyes are fixed on the screen, and they're big and blue and stunning, he's always loved that their kids have eyes that are her blue, deep and tranquil. But there's something behind them now that is hard and frightening, and the hole in his chest protests as he tenses.

"Did Olivia tell you about our conversation?" she asks quietly.

Shots fired. Repeat. Shots fired.

His voice limps out of his throat, uneven and strangled. "Kathy, we already discussed this—"

"No, not that one. I meant the one in the hospital."

"What are you talking about?"

Three heartbeats go by.

"She told me everything, Elliot."

Man down.

His brow tightens. "What did she tell you?"

"Everything. Enough."

Three seconds pass in which he tries, tries his damndest, to picture Olivia spilling her guts to his wife as he lies unconscious in a hospital bed. Nothing in his imagination is cooperating.

"You're going to have to be more specific."

She sighs, and her eyes are even more frightening because he would swear on a Bible that Kathy isn't really in there anymore. "You know what makes me sad, Elliot?"

"What's that?" he croaks.

"The fact that you can sit in our house, in our _home_, on our couch, and pretend that I don't know you well enough to know that you're hiding something from me." Her eyes leave the screen and meet his, and he can feel his face freeze as he thinks, Shit. "That makes me sad."

The creak on the floor is never going to be silenced, he knows that now, or maybe he's always known it and just ignored the inevitable. He can't fix it, just like he can't fix this, because sometimes things are just foundationally, structurally wrong. And the only way to fix those things is to just burn them down.

She looks back at the television, and he can't think of anything to say to her, because nothing will make this better, this knowing that she knows. He'd once accused her of communicating her feelings to him to manipulate his decisions, but she's being honest now. Sadness radiates from her body like a stench, and all he can do is wallow.

His childhood priest's voice creeps out of an old memory and into his ear. _Surely, your sins shall find you out._

And it's not the way he'd always feared, with screaming and tears and the throwing of wedding rings. It is quiet, and somber, and sad.

There is an ache in his chest that the painkillers won't touch. Kathy is still caressing his earlobe while she stares at the television set, and he fights back the urge to fight something, to fight anything, to use his hands and his know-how and make this _right_ again.

But his hands beat lockers and pull triggers; they can't even fix that damn floor. He does not realize he is clenching his fists until his hands relax across his stomach; the soft whisps of Kathy's breath and the sounds of Shea stadium wash over them as he sits with his wife. They are bleeding and broken and the sofa should be stained with melancholy.

Baseball watches them as they sit, and their breaths march steadily, evenly across the space. This is what they've come to, his high school sweetheart, his girl next door, his lover, his old best friend – slowly bleeding out on an old sofa. It's the feeling of surrender, of rest without relief.

The world is black and white and red

*

Elliot wakes up sometime later, his head cushioned by a throw pillow as the blank television screen stares at him.

Dusk has crept into the living room, shrouding it in greys, and the stillness reminds him of a funeral home. He has just slept through his own wake.

There is a glass of water and two more pain pills on the coffee table, and he downs them with a slow gulp before lying back down.

He stares at the ceiling as the heaviness descends, and his last thoughts are of God, sin, that damned creak in the floor, and Olivia.

*


	32. Lapsus memoriae

One more Elliot POV before the story starts moving again...

I heart all of you.

"Slip of the memory"

There were clouds over Manhattan on a Monday, and Father McHugh had offered him coffee and a wing-backed chair before dispensing his opinion about being careful on the job.

"I'm careful, Father. I've got people watching my back," Elliot had assured him, and he'd meant it.

"Of course," the priest had replied calmly. "But God must guard your mind. Sexuality and infidelity do not necessarily go hand-in-hand."

Elliot had smiled and tried not to roll his eyes. It's not like that, he wanted to tell him. It's just Olivia, and I've seen a pretty woman before. Everyone calm down.

And that was a kind of truth, that Olivia was and ever would be a friend to him.

And then Kathy left.

Kathy _left_.

Because all of a sudden, she remembered a clause in their wedding vows that said marriage was for life, unless someone gets tired of the work hours necessary to pay for everything.

"I can't do this anymore," she'd whispered, and he could see the freckle on her collarbone because of her shirt's drooping neckline. He remembered the first time he found that freckle, and he remembered how she'd squealed and playfully slapped him away the first time he'd licked it.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're never here. You're not here for me, or for the kids. You missed Kathleen's play—"

"No, I didn't—"

"You left during intermission, Elliot. I just—" and then she'd calmed, and looked him in the eye, and he could feel his stomach clench. "I can't do this." And she left.

By the time she got back from her mother's, he'd taken his necessities and set up a makeshift bachelor pad in the crib. A bachelor pad that could be folded up each morning and stuffed back into his locker. And everything he saw was Kathy and failure and other shades of grey.

His kids spent the night with him at the small apartment he'd found, and it was awkward because Kathy was the one who always made sure that the pauses in their conversations felt warm and natural, and not stilted and wanting. And there were no sounds of pots and pans banging or of Kathy humming in the hallway.

He never saw her, but he knew she was rubbing her temples a lot. He showed up at the house once, unannounced, and there were light pink spots at her hairline. They were both miserable, but she seemed freer than he did, and he'd wondered how that was possible, how after twenty years you could just lose a husband like he was dead weight and be so close to fine.

He ordered a blueberry muffin once. He didn't particularly care for blueberry muffins, but Kathy'd made them for the kids each week and the smell always seemed to float around her like an aura of wholesomeness., So he bought the muffin and sat with it for awhile before eating it slowly in his car, picking the crumbs from the wrapper and breathing in the cold scent of blueberries and batter.

And then he'd walked into work and Olivia'd cocked her eyebrow at him as he'd said good morning.

"What?" he'd asked defensively.

"Something in your teeth," she'd muttered with a smirk as he removed the damn blueberry.

She'd always been a smirker, he noted. And that's not all he began to note.

Olivia'd changed her perfume one day, he could tell as soon as he brushed past him to sit at her desk. The new stuff smelled like fruit. He'd almost asked her to change it back because consistency at that point was a hot commodity, but he didn't foresee her reacting favorably to the news that he was able to catalogue her smells.

Things were different when he'd lived alone for the first time in his life. Things were different when his only constant companion was a strikingly beautiful single woman who knew him better than anyone and could still look him in the face and chuckle at something stupid, like mustard on his chin. "Geez, Elliot," she'd grin. "Wipe that shit off."

She was Olivia and she was there. And then things began to jump out to him, things he'd always known the way he knew how to tie his shoes, things that were so basic and simple and obvious that he felt like an ass when he found himself dwelling on them. The slope of a collarbone. The curve of a fingernail. The cowlick that always seemed to make an appearance when she was at her most exhausted.

All of a sudden, he found himself leaving his ring on the bedstand in his sterile apartment. His entire left side felt lighter. And then one day a veil lifted, just a little bit, and he saw past the collarbone and the fingernail and everything else and he saw her. He _saw_ her. She was the unthinkable, the untouchable, and he started to dream again.

He dreamt about Olivia, because she was suddenly not Just Olivia, a partner that happened to be capable and hard and beautiful. She was Olivia, and she looked good and was good and laughed at filthy jokes and drank tequila. She was comfortable and she was foreign, like Moroccan coffee or Swiss chocolate or Boba tea, and suddenly there was something like possibility in the air and he couldn't wait to get to work in the morning.

Part of his brain protested his new fixation, but the rest of him acclimated just fine, thank you. One day she climbed into the car and he realized he was inhaling the whoosh of air she'd brought in with her. Like a teenager with a crush. Or a stalker.

It was a little bit more than a crush. Or a lot more, because he suspects that A Little Bit More wouldn't explain why he can still remember the echoing crack of her head on the floor after Gitano sliced her neck open.

Then, one morning, it was all Olivia with only a little guilt, because ex-husbands can apparently dream about whoever they want. Thinking of Kathy gave him an ache, a hollow feeling between his lungs that made him crave antacids, but time was – for once – gracious to him, and soon the hollowness became a part of his normal and he bought some cookware for his apartment. The spaghetti noodles softened and he took a breath of the steam and wondered how soon was too soon to feel single.

'Careful at work' suddenly took on an entirely different connotation. At forty-three years young, Elliot Stabler finally admitted to himself that he liked the girl who sat next to him.


	33. Qvod cito acqviritvr cito perit

"Easy come, easy go."

*

She misses him.

Once upon a time, her home consisted of a studio apartment on Ross and 11th, the limited square footage of her desk, and the bland grey walls of the interrogation room.

She would count off her steps evenly, absorbing the dialogue between her partner and whatever piece of shit they'd picked up. She loved those moments, the thrill of acting on a hunch and being right, of being good at something. She loved the sight of Elliot, unblinking and unyielding, poised in his chair like a viper ready to strike, his eyebrows drawn into an angry V, framing cobalt and lashes. She loved that he never clenched his fists, that his fingers stayed loose and ready, one hand under his chin and the other laid flat on the table.

She loved that he could flick a glance at her and she would know what was going to come out of his mouth next. And she loved that, for just a few moments, within the confines of those bland grey walls, she was more than just a detective, more than a woman who slept alone at night and dreamt of half-sung lullabies. In that room, the fates of men and women rested in her open palm; she was Athena, she was Diana, she was an empress, she was Joan of Arc and the Terminator all rolled into one, and anything that came her way was quickly conquered and subjugated to her will.

But her time in interrogation never lasted long enough, and she always walked through the doors and into the real world, and the weight of things settled into the crevices of her skin and she felt tired, and heavy, and useless.

Sometimes she and Elliot would settle into their chairs and look at one another, only for a moment, before going back to work. But it always made her feel a little lighter. And now she is stuck, once again, staring at the back of a chair that should have him in it.

She misses him.

*

Two… five… eight…

"Got those LUDS you asked for."

Fin's greeting is punctuated by the slap of the paper as it lands on the desk in front of her. "Dammit," she mutters.

"Something wrong?"

"Nothing… it's… I lost count."

"Count."

"My OB told me to count the baby's kicks," she explains sheepishly. "I was counting."

"That's what you do now?" he asks with a frown. "Sit there and count?"

Olivia shrugs. "Guess so."

"Get your own damn LUDS next time," he mutters as he heads for his desk.

He balls up his gum wrapper and tosses it onto the growing pile of trash he has been leaving on Munch's desk, and the forlorn expression on his face makes her chuckle. "Looks like somebody misses their partner," she smirks.

Fin's eyes sweep across her and to Elliot's empty seat. His gaze unnerves her. "Looks that way."

*

One thing she misses about Elliot is his willingness to walk at her pace. Fin lets her waddle behind him like an obese duck.

"Don't you dare ring that fucking doorbell until I get there," she pants angrily, noting with some satisfaction that pregnancy has exponentially increased the amount of Bitch she can use in her voice.

Visibly chafing at the time it takes her to climb the stairs to the Brownstone, Fin huffs a sigh. The doorbell rings the instant her left foot reaches the stoop. "You better hope we don't have to chase this guy down," he mutters. "I ain't never seen a cop waddle before."

"Keep it up, Tutuola. It's easier to waddle when my union rep is up your ass."

He rolls his eyes, but the front door opens before he can make any sort of rebuttal.

"Wayne Foster?" Olivia asks, flashing her badge.

The blond man doesn't even attempt to disguise his surprise as his eyes flick down to her obscenely swollen torso. Almost thirty weeks along and I'll still kick your ass, she thinks bitterly. Just so long as you hold still. And don't hit back.

Maybe Fin has a point.

"That's me," Blond Man finally answers.

"Mr. Foster, I'm Detective Benson, this is Detective Tutuola. We'd just like to ask you a few questions."

He shrugs, and somehow manages to make a casual gesture look fraught with anxiety. "Okay."

"Mr. Foster, are you acquainted with Dana McCluskey?" He shifts, squinting his eyes, and Olivia sighs. "This Dana McCluskey," she adds, holding up a photo procured from the McCluskey's apartment after the shootings.

Foster's eyes narrow again as he stares at the picture for about three seconds too long to be believable. "I don't think so," he answers slowly. His voice has a hint of a southern drawl.

"Look close, Mr. Foster."

"Maybe it would help if we held up a picture of her phone number," Fin quips. "C'mon, man. We got your cell off her phone records."

Foster blanches, and Olivia feels a familiar thrill surge through her. Got one, she thinks smugly.

"Mr. Foster, I'd like to ask you to come with us."

*

"We're friends," Foster insists. "That's all."

"Friends? You didn't even recognize her," Olivia snaps.

"We met online," he insists. "We've never met."

"Hm."

Foster's eyes are dilated, and he's sweating. And pregnant or not, this gives Olivia the upper hand.

"What's in Newark?" she asks calmly.

"Newark?"

"Don't tell me you've never been to Newark," she responds innocently.

"I…I don't—"

"They've got that great new performance arts center downtown," Fin says casually. "Lots of people come through there. Sting, Lauryn Hill…"

"Yo Yo Ma," she adds. "Great place for a date."

Foster blinks. "I've never been."

Bingo.

"Oh, come on now, Wayne. You know we know better than that."

"I'm telling you, I've never—"

"Well you must like your dinner cold, then." Olivia slides a piece of paper from her folder across the table to him. A photocopy of an American Express sales slip. "Because that's a little far for a delivery." She cocks her head. "Unless… you're remembering something that you want to tell us."

Three more beads of sweat appear on his forehead as he stares at the receipt. Dinner for two.

"That's the problem with you southern boys," Olivia purrs. "You're raised too well to lie worth a damn."

Foster puts his head in his hands. In the corner, Fin smirks.

"Alright, Wayne, let's hear it. Why were you wining and dining Dana McCluskey?"

**

Questioning went well, but Wayne's story isn't enough to hold him and so he walks out of the station with tears in his eyes. Olivia almost feels sorry for him.

"Why's that?"

She'd verbalized her thoughts unknowingly, and Fin is looking at her for an answer. She shrugs. "I think he really loves her."

"Maybe. Won't matter too much if she's playing him."

"Why not?"

He looks at her like she's spontaneously started to bald. "You think he'd stick around anyway?"

She shrugs again. "I don't know. Maybe. If he loves her."

"Love," Fin snorts. "He started pokin' around with a married woman. Guys like that ain't looking for love."

"We don't know that."

Fin looks at her this time, and it takes everything inside of her not to look away first. After a moment, he breaks the stare and grabs his phone. "We know enough to bring Dana McCluskey in."

*

Twelve… fifteen… sixteen…

"Hello, Olivia."

Her hand freezes on her belly and her head snaps up to meet a familiar pair of eyes. Time stops. Something in her deflates, and it comes out with a sigh.

"Kurt."

*

Chapter End Notes:

How excited am I to be back into the story? EXTREMELY excited. I love Olivia and Fin together. Not together together, just... you know. Ah, forget it.

You guys are great. Let me know what you think.


	34. Conscientia mille testes

"Conscience is as good as a thousand witnesses."

*

"Men always want money or sex or both."

The hiss of the curling iron accompanied Serena's words as she pulled another lock of her daughter's dark hair around the barrel. Olivia stared unflinchingly into the mirror.

"I'm not saying they're evil. I'm not saying women can't want the same thing. I'm saying that men want what they want and," she lightly slapped Olivia's hand as it fumbled with her bangs. "Stop that. I finished that part already. Men want what they want and they get what they want.

"Some boys are – dammit. Hold still, Olivia – some boys are nice, but I want you to remember that. You may not think they're always looking for means to an end, but…" she trailed off, fumbling for an uncurled piece of hair. "Well, that's neither here nor there. Just tell me you'll remember that."

"Sure, Mom."

Serena's eyes bored into hers through the mirror. "Promise me."

Olivia stared back. "I promise, Mom."

"Good. What time did he say he would be here?"

And that was The Talk Olivia got before her junior prom.

*

Money or sex. Or money _and_ sex, although she suspects Kurt is not here the the latter.

They are back, back in the interrogation room where he'd questioned the paternity of the baby and essentially told her to go fuck herself. She thought of that day everytime she used this room, now.

Kurt has the sensibility to look sheepish and awkward, and she finds herself enjoying his discomfort. He nervously scratches the back of his neck, and she waits.

"So." Scratch. "I bet you're wondering why I'm here."

She doesn't blink, and he shifts uncomfortably. "I am a little curious," she says after a moment, and her voice is cold. "Given your reaction to our last conversation in here."

"Yeah... okay. About that." He stands and walks until he is in front of the one-way glass. "Are you sure we're alone?" he asks suddenly.

"Kurt," she sighs impatiently. "I have work to do. Say what you came to say."

"Okay, look, I just needed to tell you… I've had some time to think, and…" he clears his throat. Stands up straighter. "I reacted badly, before. In here. I know that, and I'm sorry. Truly sorry, Olivia, but… I want to be a part of this baby's life."

For the second time in twenty minutes, time stops. She blinks, but it is very, very slow and she might have been able to take a nap in the time it took for her eyes to open again. But they do open, and he is still standing there by the window with pleading eyes and all of a sudden she wants to scream and scream and scream until people just give her wide berth so she can have some fucking peace.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Vomiting. Melinda. Patel. Elliot. Ultrasound. Casey. Locker room. Elliot. Hospital. Elliot.

Kurt's been really fucking out of the loop.

Too little, too late, a voice in her head whispers.

He's the father, another voice argues. It sounds like Elliot's.

Everyone shut up, she thinks angrily. Just shut up.

"Olivia?"

She blinks again, and it isn't in slow motion. Kurt is still looking at her, waiting. He looks worried.

"Kurt, I…" she swallows. "I don't really know what to say. I mean, you—where have you _been_?"

"I've been here, I just, it was all so fast and I needed some time to just fucking _think_--"

"_You_ needed time?"

"For Chrissakes, Olivia, everything happened so fast—"

"Yeah, I know, _Kurt_. I was there."

"I wasn't ready—"

"Neither was I! I wasn't ready! I wasn't ready for any of this! I'm still not fucking ready!"

Silence.

He still has that whipped puppy look on his face, and she knows it isn't healthy but she can't help thinking of Elliot. At least when she yells at Stabler, he has the common courtesy to get pissed off and yell right back.

"I want to help you," Kurt says finally, and she tells herself to breathe because her blood pressure can't get to high or something bad will happen. Maybe the baby will be born with horns.

"I don't need your help," she rejoins through clenched teeth. "I don't want your money."

"This isn't about money."

"Then what is this? Did you wake up today and decide you're magically okay with having a kid—"

"I have a son already, Olivia. You know that."

For the life of her, she doesn't think she did. But Kurt had always talked so damn much, surely it was to be expected that some of the information slipped through the cracks. "I didn't remember that," she admits. "But I don't see how it has any bearing on us."

He steps closer, and she fights the reflex to step back. She stares at his jawline. "Kevin and I… we don't talk. We don't… I guess you could say we're estranged." He blinks quickly, twice. "I want this baby to know me. I want to do this right. I want to help."

"Help how?" she asks defensively. "Send birthday money? Pay for school? Take her out on weekends?"

"However it—her?"

Fuck.

"Are you—"

"I'm having a girl," she says quietly. Reluctantly.

He looks stunned. Again. "A girl?"

"I haven't told anybody. Except Elliot."

Elliot.

"Elliot," Kurt repeats. There is a frown in his voice.

"He's been helping me out." She looks down. "A lot's happened since we talked."

"I see."

Do you? she wants to ask.

"I do, I think. I know a lot's happened. I know I haven't been here."

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. The baby took her brain filter.

He shifts awkwardly. "So… do you want to talk—"

"How far along am I, Kurt?" she asks suddenly. He stares at her for a moment before his brow wrinkles.

"I… Olivia, I don't—"

"It's your kid, Kurt. You want to be a part of this, so tell me. How far along?"

"What do you… in weeks?"

"Yes. In weeks."

He stares very, very hard at the floor for several moments, and just when she thinks he's going to blurt something idiotic like 'eighty,' he looks back up. "Thirty weeks. You'll be thirty weeks on Friday."

Well, fuck.

"You're good with the numbers," she sighs reluctantly.

"I've thought about you a lot," he admits. "I've thought about _us_ a lot."

Oh no. Oh. No.

"Olivia, please just… just let me be a part of this. I want to be a good dad, and maybe… maybe I can be right for you—"

She opens her mouth to tell him where he can go when she feels it.

A kick.

And not just any kick. A Kick.

All processes halt, and her mouth is still open as her brain kicks into overdrive after a moment of complete silence. This is Kurt. He's a dick.

He's the father.

He's annoying. He's overbearing.

He's the father.

She is stuck, caught, trapped at a fork in the road and she has no idea what to choose. To have him come in at the eleventh hour and start oohing and ahing over baby booties. Or to tell him to go fuck himself and leave her alone.

He's the father.

Kick.

And then it comes to her.

In a blinding, white flash of light, she realizes that she isn't at a fork in the road. Not at all.

Because this isn't her choice.

She remembers the weight of Serena, the bond that held her to a woman she both loved and hated with equal intensity. She remembers Serena taking her to a restaurant on Thanksgiving, walking down the street in a haze of vodka with her arm around Olivia's shoulders. It had felt like a vise.

"Just you and me, sweetheart," Serena had cooed. "It's better this way."

And all of a sudden, it doesn't matter if Kurt is an asshole who works for a newspaper and gets manicures. Because he's the father, and part one of not fucking up this whole motherhood thing has got to be giving her girl a choice.

With sudden, shocking clarity, she realizes she's been holding onto a mental picture of her daughter bouncing, smiling, laughing on her father's knee… but it isn't Kurt.

And she's pretty sure Elliot's got a full lap these days, what with the entire family thing he's got going on.

The mental picture hurts, it physically _hurts_, but she tries to let it go. Because she's making her first big decision as a mom, and it cannot be about what she prefers.

He's the father.

Kurt is still looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to tell him where to stick it, and she wishes she could. She wants more than almost anything.

Almost.

"I'm not getting back together with you," she says thickly. Her throat feels like it's ten times too small.

Kick. He's the father.

"But I think you could come with me to my next appointment."

Kurt's face lights up like a Christmas tree.

When he leaves five minutes later, he has a copy of her OB appointment card and a spring in his step.

Olivia sits at her desk in silence before Fin's looks start to get to her and she resumes her paperwork.

***

Chapter End Notes:

**I've gotten a lot of reviews and e-mails concerning bringing Kurt back into the story, so I'll just address everyone's worries here. Kurt is the **_**father**_**, and Olivia knows first-hand what it's like to lose one-half of your heritage before you even know you have it. Elliot and Olivia getting it on? Hot. Do they belong together? Absolutely. Does romance always take priority in real life? Absolutely NOT. I like reading stories that feel like they could happen, and I like writing them the same way. Olivia isn't just thinking about her sex life, she's got a daughter who is priority one. I'm not saying E/O can't happen, what I'm saying is this:  
This story is about how Olivia learns to become more than she is - in life, in motherhood, etc. Everything else is incidental.  
Whew! Long A/N. Thank you so much for your support... and of course I welcome some healthy dissenting viewpoints! Everyone's reviews make my life. Hearts!**


	35. Inter alia

Short chapter... it's as long as it needs to be, in my humble opinion.

They'll get longer soon - thanks everybody!

"Among other things."

Everything's fine, she says to herself as she walks up the steps to her building. Kurt sits patiently in the car, waiting for her to get in safely, and it reminds her of Him and so she keeps repeating calming things in her head like a mantra.

Everything's fine.

It's just the hormones.

The baby is healthy. You're healthy.

Kurt is being Not An Asshole. He's helpful and considerate and he still has some kind of X factor that makes her grit her teeth, but hey, that'll teach her to slum for men around Manhattan bars again.

Everything's fine.

*

She jolts awake in the middle of the night and the weight of it all collapses onto her chest.

Everything's fine, she gasps into the darkness. Everything's fine.

Everything's fine.

Then why, a voice in her head asks, can't you stop crying?

*

It has been three weeks. Twenty-one days.

A part of her wishes she was silly enough to track hours, but the rest of her bitchslaps that area into submission and she contents herself with the awareness of larger increments of time.

John has been back for a week and a half, and he gripes everytime he has to move, but he's okay. Fin hasn't stopped scowling since Munch discovered the gathering of wrappers and other trash on his desk, but it's the kind of scowl that looks like a grin when it's on his face, and sometimes she absently wonders what it would be like to be genuinely attached to a partner without wanting to jump his bones all the time. Must be nice.

Munch had been at work for almost three minutes before Cragen determinedly put Olivia back on desk duty, and this time she doesn't even feel like complaining. She is thirty-two weeks along and this close, _this close_, to hiring a rickshaw for in-house transportation. She's not sure how much they'd charge, but she hopes it's per mile and not per trip because her to-and-fro from the bathroom alone would cost her a month's rent. Her ankles look like knees.

Elliot has called Cragen twice to tell him that he'll be back soon, real soon, and that he just needs a couple more days, and maybe Cragen wasn't overjoyed, but Elliot hadn't taken a vacation in three years and, ipso facto, practically had the ability to stay home until her daughter's second birthday. She's heard all of this from Cragen.

He hasn't called her.

She hasn't seen him.

This sucks.

*

"Hope you haven't gotten too comfortable flying solo," Cragen says as he passes by her desk Monday morning. "Elliot's back today."

But six hours later, his chair is still empty, her nerves are shot, and her back is killing her from straightening her spine whenever someone comes through the door. She keeps glancing up to see if Cragen's face will give anything away, but all he's said this afternoon is, "It might be a couple more days."

He looks as impatient as she feels.

*

Two days later, and her partner is still playing hooky. Kurt had driven her to another appointment and had spent the entire time being a pain in the ass by asking questions that had been answered during her first two visits. She missed Elliot's morose brooding from the corner.

Fin and Munch spend all morning trading barbs about Reagan's fiscal policies and whether or not Tupac is really dead when something inside of her snaps and she throws her pencil down.

"Liv...?" Munch asks as she stands and pulls on her jacket.

"Be back later," she throws over her shoulder.

Fuck it. She's going to Queens.

*

He's not home, she realizes after rapping on the door for fifteen minutes.

No one is home.

The white house looks almost shabby in the sunlight, and the realization finally hits her that time has not been kind to anything attached to the Stabler family.

Her cabfare requires the rest of her cash, and she calls Cragen as the driver deposits her in front of her apartment; she absently notes that he has no qualms about her safety as he peals back into traffic.

"Are you feeling okay?" Cragen asks.

"I need to rest."

What's good for the gander, she thinks wearily as she crawls into her bed.

*

She jolts awake in the middle of the night, only to find that it is ten o'clock. She's been napping for eight hours.

The fuck, she thinks groggily as she struggles to sit up. Her mouth is dry. She needs water and her vitamins and a neck massage and a bath. Maybe some magnesium tablets and some hot tea…

It takes several seconds for her to realize that there is a constant pounding sound reverberating through the apartment, and she blinks.

The pounding gets louder.

"Will you _shut the fuck up_?" someone yells. It's coming from the hallway.

"Police, get back inside," another voice yells back. This one's more familiar.

Pounding.

Knocking.

Bullying her neighbors.

She's bleary-eyed and tired and pregnant and angry and confused, but she still has to fight a small smile as she waddles to the door, listening to the verbal skirmish in the hallway.

Elliot's back.

***

Chapter End Notes:

**Yay! Elliot's back! How nerdy is it of me that I heaved a sigh of euphoric relief as I typed those words? Everyone's feedback has been so wonderful... let's get some more of those sweet, sweet reviews going!**


	36. Nemo sine vitio est

*

Some demons are better left in their cages. Elliot looks like shit.

"The hell, Elliot?" she demands, except she's big and soft and pregnant and it isn't as no-nonsense as she would've liked. Apparently Elliot is beyond noticing, however, because he is leaning with both hands on the doorposts with his head ducked down, and his breathing is harder than usual. He's gasping for air like he's asthmatic or hyperventilating, and her brow wrinkles with concern. "What's wrong?"

"Can I…?" he asks, nodding his head toward her living room.

She opens the door wider. "Come in."

He does, but it isn't quite his walk or his posture or his breathing and her stomach tightens. Something's off.

"Do you want some—"

"Water," he pants wearily. "A whole hell of a lot of water."

She shuffles as quickly as possible to fulfill his request. When she emerges moments later from the kitchen, his eyes are closed, his head flung back across the sofa. If it wasn't for the twitching of his jaw, she'd think he was asleep.

"El?"

Blue eyes snap open, and she flinches. Elliot's face has always been furrows and angles, but now…

He looks gaunt.

Tired.

Old.

He takes the glass from her with a muttered 'thank you' and chugs its contents with a vigor belying his tired appearance. The bullet took more than his flesh, and she notes the shadows underneath his eyes, the deepened creases above his nose and on his forehead. He hasn't looked this bad since—

"Kathy left," Elliot states, and it would sound matter-of-fact to anyone else, but she knows him better than she knows anything, and he sets the glass down on the coffee table, a little too hard for nonchalance. Everything about him is a little too hard.

"What happened?" she asks quietly.

"She's gone," he says, and he's not looking at anything except the air three feet in front of him. "It was a long time coming. We both knew it. I knew it. She knew it." He picks up his glass and turns it over in his hands, glaring at its facets. "She knew it," he mutters. "And I… well, I'm ihere/i now, so that tells you a shitload about me, right?"

She wishes it did.

She's going to ask, and it's going to get ugly, but it's like she's living on some weird, fucked-up system of cues anyways now, so she bites the bullet, so to speak, and asks. "Was it because of us?"

To her surprise, he simply shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe. Yes."

Olivia stares. "Elliot—"

"You know what really, just, god, ikills/i me," he sneers. "I prayed. After Kathy left the first time, I iprayed/i for a second chance for my family. All the time. Did you ever know that?" She shakes her head slowly, and he bites out a short, sharp laugh. "Sure you didn't know. Why would you know? You don't pray, why should you give a damn about what anyone else does? Well I prayed, Olivia. I prayed for forgiveness for being a shit husband and a shit father and a shit handyman around the house and whatever the hell else I did wrong. And I prayed for another chance, and I swore I'd do it right if I did it over. And then… well, we got Eli. We got Eli and I got a second chance to do it right. I had my marriage back.

"So I took it, except—except I didn't fucking want it anymore." He meets her gaze, and his eyes are glistening and glazed and also, she notes, a little dilated. "I didn't want my iwife/i. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and just… god, I couldn't get enough of her."

"Elliot—"

"And then something happens. And one night I'm laying in bed and I realize that I just want it to be morning. I want to wake up and go to work and see you and get the hell away from my house. Do you know what that feels like," the glass is turned over and over and over in his hands, the long, strong fingers brushing roughly across the smooth surface. "Do you know what it feels like to be somebody, to have something, and then to just not be that anymore? It's like a fucking brain transplant. Everything looks different. Like a switch was flipped. Or flicked. I don't know, whatever, I just want… I just iwant/i—" his voice breaks off, and his eyebrows are so close they're almost touching above his nose. His mouth is set in a cruel line. "I'm tired," he sighs after a moment. "I'm so goddamn tired."

She processes everything for several seconds, and his slowing, still-ragged breathing is her soundtrack.

"Where's Eli?" she whispers after a moment.

She jumps as a dry sob bursts from Elliot's mouth, and then his breathing picks up again and he is shuddering. "I… I don't want…" he swallows, his throat convulsing. "I don't want to talk about it right now."

"Okay," she nods slowly. She moves to the couch beside him, leans into his side so their arms are brushing against one another. "Okay."

"Fuck," he gasps as she grasps his forearm. He looks at her fingers like he's never seen them before.

Moments pass, and his breathing grows slower, calmer; the glass has finally stilled in his hands. He turns to her and blinks, and it's like he's just realized she was there. "God, Liv, I'm sorry," he blurts. "It's late—"

"It's fine," she interrupts, staring at his face. "How's the chest?"

"Oh, it's…" he pauses, taking inventory. "It's fine. Can't walk anywhere without feeling like my lungs are caving in, but..."

"You'll get past it," she finishes.

He nods. "Yeah, I guess I will. How about—" he swallows. "How is she?" he asks, nodding his head toward her belly.

For the first time in days, her lips twitch upward and it doesn't feel like her skin is cracking with the effort. "She's good. Getting bigger every day and not letting me forget it."

Something close to a smile touches his lips. "I can tell."

"She's turned," she continues. "Her head is down… well, she's getting ready. Seven more weeks."

He stares at her torso as the silence settles around them for what seems like hours, but is actually – to Olivia's estimation – a minute and a half. "It's been awhile."

Elliot nods, slowly. "Yeah."

"Where have you been?"

She sees his eyes tighten, his fingers flex around the glass. "Had some things to take care of," he answers, staring straight ahead.

Ah.

"Where are you staying?" she asks softly.

He nods. "At home. Only for a—" he swallows. "I'm looking for a place. Again."

"Is Kathy…?"

"She's there. She talked about maybe trying to live together, but I…" he swallows again. "We told the kids tonight."

Her hand lifts of its own volition to stroke the back of his neck. He shudders again, slightly. "How did—"

"Look," he says quickly. "I know it's been too long. I should've called."

"You should've called," she agrees. "But you had reasons not to."

His chest heaves a sigh. "I did."

Her fingers continue to play over the skin beneath his hairline as she studies his profile. He looks tired, she thinks again. Sick tired. But he's here, and the air she inhales tinges her body with relief.

"Do you need to stay here tonight?"

He nods again. The glass makes one more revolution. "If that's okay."

"That's okay."

*

They are in her bed, and she can tell he is still awake by the occasional hitch of his breathing. She is facing away from him, since sleeping on her back has been out of the question for weeks and turning to him isn't an option yet.

Unconsciously, her hand creeps to her belly for what has become a nighttime ritual. She prods lightly around her bump, imagining her daughter's tiny, wiry frame as it fits inside her womb.

I can't wait to meet you, she says silently. But I'm scared shitless for when you get here.

As if to answer her, there is slight movement. Tiny, almost imperceptible. But she feels it.

That isn't all she feels.

Kathy left, he'd said quietly. Kathy left.

Kathy left.

Elliot is free, she realizes. Elliot is free.

Something in her always thought this was a possibility, that, in the end, Elliot being Elliot would choose one or the other. Kathy. Or her.

Stupidly enough, she didn't ever think Kathy would choose for both of them. And now…

She isn't quite sure how to feel. Ecstatic seems inappropriate, especially given the fact that she is Olivia and he is Elliot, and if life has taught them anything it's that things never get easier. And he certainly has made her no promises.

She has a sudden impulse to turn over, to hold his head in her hands and make him swear to her that he'll be here for everything, for all of it, because he knows what he's doing and he knows her and together they can accomplish a shitload of good for this kid. And maybe for each other.

"What are you thinking about?" she asks.

He is quiet, and she's wondering if he's ignoring her on purpose of if she spoke too softly when he finally answers. "My kids."

"Which one?"

"All of them," he says flatly.

His tone is not conducive to pillow talk, so she decides to let this one go before they open a fresh can of worms in the morning. He is here now, and maybe he is freer than before but he's still Elliot, he still has a family attached to him and that's what is Right. She doesn't think the universe would work any other way.

One hand clutches her pillow and the other cups her stomach as sleep takes her.

She wakes up in the middle of the night to find that she has turned over so that their faces are nearly touching, and she watches him drowsily for a moment before slipping back under with a frown.

***


	37. In vinculis etiam audax

Author's Chapter Notes:

"In chains yet still bold."

***

She wakes up, and he is gone. And only the post-it note on the mirror surprises her.

Everything is running behind this morning, because Elliot not only decided to get up before her alarm sounded, but he also deemed it necessary to shut it off all together. So it is almost ten o'clock in the morning by the time she paces into work.

Elliot's monitor and desk lamp are lit, and a surge of gladness overwhelms her before it settles, cohabitating with the frustration that now simmers behind everything in her life that he touches. As sure as the phases of the moon, they have experienced a genuine and soul-baring interlude, and now he is avoiding her and she wants to be annoyed at him for it, but her energy levels are flagging and she thinks she's almost numb to this shit by now. She's not sure what that's called, but she's a cynic so she'll pretend that it's their very own fucked-up brand of intimacy.

"Morning, Sunshine," Munch quips from his chair. His eyes follow her as she trudges to her desk. "On behalf of New York's Finest, thank you for gracing us with your presence this morning."

"Shut up, John," she mutters wearily, backing cautiously into her seat.

He smirks. "Shouldn't you be in a better mood?"

"I don't know. Are you taking another sick day?"

"Cute," he retorts dryly. "Although I was referring to the fact that your partner's finally back."

You have no idea, she thinks, shrugging. "A lot of good it's going to do. I'm stuck here."

"Small price to pay—" he starts, but the ringing of his telephone interrupts him. "Munch." Several seconds pass before he frowns. "You left it on _my_ desk? Why… I don't see it… No… Yeah, I looked. Last I checked, Tutuola, a medical leave of absence is not the equivalent of a demotion to your goddamn secretary…"

Amused in spite of herself, Olivia looks away and begins her morning work routine. She is halfway through a dozen new e-mails in her inbox when Cragen emerges from his office. Elliot is behind him.

"Munch," he barks.

"Captain?"

"Finish what you're doing. You're with Elliot today."

Olivia studiously keeps her eyes on her work, but she catches Munch's scowl in her periphery.

Cragen purses his lips. It makes him look older. "Is there a problem?"

"Aside from the fact that my last outing with Elliot ended with me nursing a bullet wound on my partner's couch for two weeks—" he holds up a folder. "I'm already on a case."

"Give it to Olivia."

"It's not desk. We're still doing interviews."

"Where the hell's Fin?"

"P.S. 274. We're meeting in fifteen."

The manpower problem has reared its ugly head, yet again, and Cragen frowns. She's sure there is a solution here, something like, Olivia, just be careful and go with Elliot – but this does not seem to occur to either of the three men whose brows pucker in contemplation.

Olivia has never been the last one picked in any team sporting event, but she feels like the fat kid on the bleachers right about now. And she doesn't like it.

"I can—" she starts. Cragen cuts her off.

"No."

"Captain—"

"You need to take it easy."

"Elliot?"

"He's right, Liv—"

She glowers at him. "I can still investigate a goddamn crime scene, Elliot. Captain," and it sounds like a whine, even to her. "I'll be careful."

If it is possible, Cragen's mouth tightens even more; he'd look like a child with a lemon sucker, if it wasn't for the crevices that wrinkles and time have etched into his face.

Seconds pass before he finally huffs in defeat, and by then she already has her jacket on.

"This is the last time," he warns.

The metaphorical lemon sucker has been given to Elliot, who starts for the door with a tight-ass look on his face that is as endearing in its familiarity as it is annoying.

"You said that last time," she throws over her shoulder with a small smile. She and Elliot are going to a crime scene, and the world almost feels normal again.

***

They are back.

Square one.

The drawing board.

A single-celled organism in cosmic goo.

The silence in the sedan is oppressive as Elliot easily manuevers them through downtown traffic. The radio is off.

They both stare straight ahead. She would give the brand new baby monitor in her closet to know what he's thinking. She would give up the breast pump to know what exactly is going through her own mind.

There are several conversations that could be started at this moment.

_What happened last night?_ That's a good one. She might be able to use that one. Except it makes her sound like a clingy college co-ed who just got screwed over by the star quarterback. And Elliot's way past his prime pigskin days.

_Who am I to you?_ No. Too existential.

_What the hell is your problem?_ Too combative.

_Why are you like this?_ Too vague. Besides, it's Elliot, and he probably doesn't know the answer to that one, either.

Everything of substance she can say is being vetoed by the majority of her brain, and the silence builds and builds until she feels suffocated by it, and nothing witty is coming to mind yet so the only thing that bubbles up from her throat and out of her mouth is—

"Are you okay?" she blurts. She shifts in her seat to look at him.

At her question, Elliot blinks. Swallows twice. His hands flex on the wheel. The muscle in his jaw bunches.

Stillness pervades.

Exhaling angrily, she turns back in her seat and looks out the window. His silence is a gas leak and she's done playing with matches.

Square one. Cosmic goo. Horseshit.

***

The sun dances across the murky waters of the Hudson as Elliot parks. Warner is already at the scene; she silently appraises Olivia's shape as she turns to greet them.

"Morning," she calls dryly as Olivia passes under the crime scene tape that Elliot wordlessly holds up. "Good to see you both. Elliot," she nods. "You're looking much better."

He jerks his head in acknowledgement. "Thanks. What've we got here?"

"Male victim, late twenties, early thirties," she begins, leading them to the black bag with CORONER emblazoned on the side. "He's been beaten, so I'm assuming cause of death is hemhorraging caused by blunt force trauma to the skull and abdomen. Among other things."

Olivia frowns. "And this one's ours?"

"This was lodged in his rectal cavity," Warner explains, holding up a large plastic bag. Inside is a bloody cheerleading baton. "Judging from the angle, depth of penetration and the amount of blood, I'd say the baton probably perforated the large intestine."

No, Olivia tells herself as her stomach defiantly twists and clenches. Now is not the time.

Elliot nods. "Any prints?"

You've seen worse, Olivia screams desperately at her stomach as the tech answers. You've seen much worse. Grow up.

But it's too late, and her legs are carrying her to the railing overlooking the river and she doesn't think she'll make it but she cannot, she can NOT, vomit in front of Elliot in the middle of a fucking crime scene and—

She unceremoniously hurls her breakfast into the river, her fingers clenching the metal pole of the safety rail. The wind whips through her hair and she utters thanks to whoever is in control that she didn't puke on herself.

Unaccustomed to the sudden upheaval within, her daughter gives three hearty kicks. Olivia moans.

And he is yards away but she could swear she hears Elliot sigh.

***

"I'm not a fucking invalid," she snaps as soon as he shuts the car door.

"Nobody said you were," he replies. He is too damn calm as he backs the sedan onto the street.

"They don't need to say it."

"It happens to all of us."

"When they're fucking green, maybe. And it doesn't happen to me."

"Things change," he mutters.

She can't argue with that, but she fights the irrational urge to do so. Their light turns green and they pull forward cautiously; Elliot's been obsessive about intersections ever since Eli was born.

Eli…

Screw it.

"What happened last night?" she asks, proud at how even her voice sounds.

Elliot starts before visibly making himself relax, which, as far as she can tell, is progress. He swallows. "What… what exactly are you asking?"

"I'm asking why I woke up to a post-it note."

"Got up early," he shrugs.

"Elliot."

"I don't know what you want to hear from me right now," he sighs.

"Are you planning to—"

"Look, Olivia," he begins, and it's not angry or frustrated or pissy. It's tired. "I couldn't sleep. I thought about my kids. I thought about my family… they're on a fucking loop in my head. They're always in my head and I… I keep thinking about what I'm giving up."

She freezes, horrified. "You know I would never ask—"

"It's not about you," he clarifies. "It's just… I… I don't know how to do this right now."

Olivia struggles to keep her face impassive, because Elliot is talking to her like she's more than a pregnant, burdensome police officer who helped him fuck around on his wife. So she nods in acknowledgment and sits quietly for the rest of the ride, marinating in her own adolescent insecurities and memories of her mother.

***

She returns from the bathroom to find a post-it on her desk. Elliot's eyes don't stray from his computer monitor as she picks it up and sits down.

_Kurt Moss_, she deciphers through Elliot's scrawl. It is followed by a familiar number.

"You answering my phone now?" she asks, eyebrow cocked. He shrugs, his eyes on the screen.

"Wouldn't stop ringing."

She dials the number with a heavy sigh; Kurt answers on the third ring.

"I saw you called," she says by way of greeting.

"Yeah, thanks for calling. Do you have a minute?" he asks quickly.

Great. "Yes, I have a minute. I called you. What is it?"

"Two things, quickly. I'm looking at strollers—"

"Kurt—" she sighs. She can feel Elliot's eyes boring into the top of her head as she rests her face on her hand.

"Just listen," he insists. "I know you like to run—"

"_Liked_ to run."

"—so I'm trying to decide on a running stroller or one of those regular ones… what's this one called?" he asks someone. Olivia can hear a muffled answer. "A 'pram?' Thank you. Olivia, would you rather have a running stroller or a pram?"

"Kurt. We discussed this. You are not shopping for me."

"I know what we discussed. And you need a stroller."

"I have a stroller," she protests. And she does. Sort of. She's dog-eared a page of the Babies R' Us catalogue. Circled her dream stroller and planned on paying cash on her next payday.

"Not like this, you don't. This one's by Schwinn, the bike people… it's got a drinkholder, a place for your iPod—"

"I don't have an iPod."

"—a see-through canopy—"

"I'm hanging up now."

"Oliv—"

She replaces the phone with a grimace; Kurt's reappearance in her life has meant watching him attempt to compensate for his previous absence by jumping into fatherhood with both feet. It would be funny if he wasn't so damn overbearing about it. And fuck, she just remembered that Kurt said there were two things; she'd hung up on him before he could get both of them out. Oh well.

And now there is Elliot, staring at her with an expression that makes her think of words like "flabbergasted" and "thunderstruck." And not in the good ways.

He looks like he wants to say something, so she props her arms on her desk and waits. Their eyes meet and she stares at him expectantly, watching the wheels turn.

She doesn't have to wait long.

"Kurt's back," he says. It isn't a question.

She nods, gauging his reaction.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

His jaw works, and she knows he is trying to look casual by the way the muscle twitches as he keeps his forehead smooth. His knuckles are white around his pen. "Are you two… are you with him?" he asks quietly.

What? "God, no," she answers quickly.

He visibly loosens, and the atmosphere between them relaxes slightly. "Then why—"

Because he's the ass I picked up to scratch an itch. Because I kept him around too long. Because he's one-half of my daughter. "He's the father." The phrase sounds shopworn before it even leaves her mouth, but almost everything about them is used and tattered these days, so go figure.

Elliot doesn't react the way she thought he would, with desks flung aside and flames of possessive anger shooting out of his nostrils. There is the knitting of his brow and a glare. And then he is still for a moment, reading her expression before settling back in his chair. "You're okay with that?"

Not really. "It's not just about what I want. You have kids, you know that."

He looks down. "I do know that," he replies after a moment, frowning at the pen in his hands.

"He just wants to be involved, so… he'll be around more."

Elliot nods slowly. "Huh."

This is as good a segue as any, so she forges ahead. "What about you?"

He looks up. "'What about me?'" he repeats blankly.

"Will you? Be around, I mean," she asks, swallowing back an irrational wave of anxiety at the idea that he might not want to be.

Then Elliot looks at her for several moments, really looks at her, and his eyes are so clear it makes her feel like she's staring into the bottom of a pool. A lake with shipwrecks and seamonsters. She wishes she knew what he sees when he sees her. She wishes she knew what he was thinking.

"Do you _want_ me around?" he finally asks.

Want.

In a perfect world, she would have the words to tell him that preferring and wanting and desiring things are a thing of the past for her. That she's made her choices and now she is following through. That she's not sure she can be herself without him. That she sometimes wishes she wasn't so goddamn codependent.

But she doesn't know how to say any of that. "Yeah," she answers, nodding.

His expression is inscrutable. "Then I'll be here," he says after a long moment. They stare at each other, unblinking. And then he turns back to his computer.

And for now, that's all she needs to hear.

***


	38. Do ut des

Author's Chapter Notes:

"I give so you give back"

Thanks to Mousie for beta'ing these chapters!

***

At five o'clock, she shuts her computer down and rolls the cricks out of her neck before standing. Elliot looks at her curiously. He's lost track of time, she realizes.

"Time to go," she says with a small smile. He grunts in acknowledgment. "You want to grab something to eat?"

Elliot shakes his head slowly. "Think I'm gonna be here awhile."

"Oh." Of course. He's been gone. Work work work. "Okay, then." She pauses and glances around them; Munch and Fin are conspicuously absent, but she moves closer to him anyway. "Will I see you later?" she asks in a low voice.

He looks up again, and she is frustrated at how unreadable his face has been today. "At your place?"

She nods. "If you want. I mean, I know you're looking for a place right now…"

He leans back in his seat and stretches his arms before locking his fingers behind his head; everytime he does that she thinks of the stance they demand of a suspect before taking him into custody. She wonders if Elliot's ever realized that he does that when he's thinking.

"If I stay at your place," he says quietly, and his face is thoughtful. "I think… I should sleep on the couch."

The fuck…?

She stares at him. "On the couch."

He nods. "Yeah."

Olivia remains motionless. She is trying, really, _really_ trying not to take his statement personally – but he's been back for all of twenty-four hours and already he is treating her with this weird, scary air of detachment. And she knows that this is Elliot and he probably has his reasons and they might even be semi-legitimate, and sure he's been through a lot but… still.

Still.

"Can I ask why?"

His brow creases. "We just… we gotta do this—if we're gonna do this, we gotta do it right."

Right. "And how's that?"

"God, I don't know." He scrubs his face with his hands in one downward sweep before sitting up to lean his arms on the desk. "Just seems like we should give it time."

"Give _what_ time?"

"Us. Don't you want… I don't know, don't you want this to be a real thing?"

He's speaking eighth-grade boy. She's always sucked at that language. "Like, you and me?"

He nods.

"Yeah, I do, but… what about last night?"

He squares his body and sighs. "I've had time to think today."

"About us."

"About everything."

"Okay. And?"

His eyebrows climb. "'And?'"

"And you've thought about it. So… care to share?"

"Time, Olivia," he repeats. "I need time."

Oh.

In the recesses of her mind, she processes that she has taken the classic stance of the aggressor as she towers over him in all of her eight-months-pregnant glory, frowning and worked up and annoyed as he sits, calmly giving her glimpses into his psyche. She feels like a bully, but it's Elliot and he can handle it.

"Okay. Time. Time for what?" she insists. "And how much?"

"I don't know how much, I just need to… I don't know, process or something."

"'Process'?"

"A lot's happened in the last year."

"No shit, Sherlock." Her belly looms over her feet in silent testimony. "You think that I don't know that? That I don't wish I had more time, too?"

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I don't want to do this right now, Olivia."

"Right. But we'll do it when you're ready."

"Olivia."

"Whatever, Elliot. Why don't you call me when you're ready to talk."

He laughs, and it is too sharp and short to sound happy. "That's what I'm trying to say."

Pregnant uber-bitch urges her to lunge for his neck. The rest of her talks uber-bitch down. He's talking to you, Rational Olivia whispers. That's new.

She breathes in deeply. Time. He wants time.

One of many things she's not sure she has to offer.

"Are we okay?" he asks. He doesn't look as worried as uber-bitch thinks he should.

"Fuck it," she mutters, and she's angry but it's half-assed. And he knows it.

"Goodnight, Olivia," he says to her retreating back, and she can hear in his voice that she won't see him until morning.

She responds with something vitriolic under her breath and he doesn't hear. And even though she's pissed, she's sure that it's probably for the best.

*

There is a large box on her doorstep when she gets home. An envelope with her name scrawled across the front is taped to the top of it, and she doesn't even have to open it to know that Kurt has completely disregarded her wishes and spent money on a fucking stroller.

It's sweet of him, in an intrusive, obtuse way. Too bad she's eight fucking months pregnant and incapable of picking it up. And of course that damn editor didn't think to leave her a dolly. With a sigh, she leans over the box to unlock her door and attempts to kick it inside without straining. It doesn't work.

"Fuck," she mutters again. Cursing under her breath, she pulls out her cell phone and dials one-half of her man issues.

"Kurt," she snaps as soon as he answers.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"You owe it to this goddamn monstrosity that's blocking my doorway."

"The stroller? What's wrong with it?"

"Aside from the fact that it was purchased in spite of my explicit instructions not to shop for me, I can't fucking move it."

"You can't move it?"

Count to ten. Or thirty. "I can't carry heavy things, Kurt. You know that."

"Oh… shit," he says after a moment. "I'm so sorry. I'll be right over."

'Oh shit' is right. She is not in the mood. "Wait, you don't have to—don't do that."

"I don't mind at all. I'm about ten minutes away."

"Kurt—"

"I'm on my way," he assures her before disconnecting.

Olivia stares at her phone in aggravated disbelief before sighing in defeat. She manages her way over the box and into her apartment, cursing the existence of newspaper editors, soon-to-be-divorced detectives, and too-heavy strollers.

**

"Picked any names out yet?" Kurt asks from the living room floor, and she looks up from her copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting."

"Hm?"

"Names," he repeats, squinting at the crib assembly instructions. "Do you have any?"

"A few," she replies absently. "Casey suggested a couple of winners."

"Casey?"

"Our unit's ADA."

"Oh. So which ones do you like?"

Olivia hesitates. She'd been meaning to talk to Elliot about names, in a completely I'm-just-asking-because-I-trust-your-opinion-and-not-because-I-wish-we-lived-in-a-house-with-a-white-picket-fence-and-two-dogs sort of way. Kurt's still playing catch-up, and she's not sure he's earned his way into the Names Forum quite yet. "I'm not sure," she hedges. "I'm just kicking some around in my head."

To his credit, Moss seems to take the hint. He wrestles with the crib for ten more minutes before declaring it a hopeless case without the proper implements.

"Tools," he muttered, pulling his jacket on. "I need the right tools."

"Are you sure—?" she asks, struggling to get off the couch.

"I'll get my tools and come back sometime this week." He pauses to gauge her reaction. "If that's okay."

She rolls her eyes. "Just call before you come over"

"Alright." She tries not to mentally criticize the way he always has to fix his collar and cuffs after putting on his coat. Primping, that's what it looks like. "Thanks for dinner," he says with a smile.

The door is closed before the word 'dinner.'

***

Elliot is at his desk when she arrives; he has the balls to give her a small grin as she walks in. "Good morning."

She rewards his pleasantry with a mild glare. His smile doesn't waver.

He gets up as she sits down, and she continues to glare at his retreating form until he disappears around a corner. Focus, she chides herself as she realizes what she's doing. Work. Work work work.

Her computer is warming up when she notices it. Jauntily adorning the edge of her desk calendar.

A pink post-it.

With a frown, she picks it up and scrutinizes the writing. It is Elliot's.

_Olivia,  
Friends? Check yes or no. _

Two small boxes have been sketched beneath the words and labeled accordingly. She squints as she re-reads the message and snorts. What an ass, she thinks to herself as she grabs her pen to draft a reply.

Elliot returns a moment later, eyeing with caution the folded pink post-it that has been placed on top of his keyboard. She keeps her eyes on her computer. Poker face, she tells herself. Because he _is_ an ass. And this whatever-it-is doesn't necessarily change the fact that he's stalling on something she'd assumed was inevitable.

Her peripheral vision allows her to see him read her reply; she fights a smile as he frowns.

"Really?" he asks dryly. She nods wordlessly and continues to type.

"Okay," he says after a moment. "You're on."

He sets the post-it between his keyboard and monitor. It is upside down and she can read her own writing from where she sits.

_Prove it._

She smiles.

***

Chapter End Notes:

**Let's not skimp on the reviews... I read ALL of them!**


	39. Cuivis dolori remedium est patientia

Author's Chapter Notes:

"Patience is the cure for all who suffer."

***

In spite of Munch's protestations, he and Elliot leave before lunch to investigate what Olivia had heard a patrol officer call "The Case of the Ass Baton." After the heart-to-heart she'd initiated, she's sure Farelli won't be getting cute with her unit's caseload again.

But she had to admit, it _was_ catchy.

Her day crawls by.

She receives an e-mail from her union rep reminding her, once again, that she is eligible to begin her maternity leave at any time. She copies and pastes her reply from their last conversation.

_Thanks for the reminder. Dr. Patel says everything's great. I'll keep you posted._

She clicks 'send' with a sigh and returns to her work.

It is almost five o'clock by the time her partner returns. "How'd it go?" she asks, pulling on her jacket.

Elliot shrugs. "Eh."

"It went swimmingly. I'm happy to report that I was only held at gunpoint twice," Munch quips dryly. Fin rolls his eyes.

"Doesn't count when I'm the one holding the gun," Elliot mutters. Munch shrugs.

Olivia waits until Fin calls Munch's attention to something else before looking back to Elliot. "Hungry?"

He shakes his head. "We picked up a late lunch."

"Oh." Her ire from the night before returns; fuck his post-it. "See you tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Olivia."

***

Olivia is late to work again; by the time she arrives, Elliot and Munch are already gone.

There is a white paper bag on top of her desk; on top of it is a pink post-it note.

_A friend would know these are your favorite._

P.S. I've heard bananas go great with salsa.

Inside is an enormous cupcake, a banana and a jar of medium salsa. A conversation they'd had several months earlier replayed in her head. He'd remembered.

Dammit.

***

Elliot comes in an hour later. She cocks an eyebrow at him as he hurriedly shuffles through the stack of folders on his desk. "Where's the fire?"

"Forgot this," he says hurriedly before racing back out the door. She frowns after him before catching Fin's gaze.

"Must be nice," he says with a scowl.

"What?"

"Not being chained to this goddamn desk."

"For one case? Please. I've been here for months."

"What about Monday?"

She thinks back to her morning by the Hudson, examining bloody rectal batons like a normal detective before puking in front of Elliot. She shrugs. "I guess Cragen isn't comfortable with me on a scene right now."

"You mean Cragen isn't comfortable with you contaminating evidence." She flinches and stares at him and he smirks. "Heard you had a rookie moment."

Son of a bitch. "Shut up, Fin." She turns back to her work and types angrily before realization dawns. "Wait—did Elliot tell you that?"

"Nope."

Oh. Okay. "Who?"

"Saw Warner that afternoon. She mentioned something about you needing to take it easy."

"I _am_ taking it easy. Does she think I'm doing benchpresses at my desk?"

She bangs out several more words before growling in frustration. "You know what I don't get?" Fin raises his eyebrows, and she continues. "John and Elliot just came back from medical leave. For _gunshot_ wounds. And where are they? They're doing their jobs. Interviewing suspects. Finding the owner of _my_ ass baton."

Fin is staring. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Forget it," she mutters. She jams a piece of salsa-smothered banana into her mouth and chews it viciously, taking perverse pleasure in the disgusted grunt from Fin's desk.

Bananas with salsa or no bananas with salsa, she fights the urge to stomp away as Elliot once again declines her company after work.

She is such a goddamn _girl_.

**

She cannot _wait_ until her hormones are back to normal. They should take her service weapon away soon.

Friday morning's commute to work is spent thinking of ways to destroy that morning's pink post-it as Elliot looks on.

That is, until she reads the message.

_Tonight - dinner at your place?_

Well then.

She looks at him. He is watching her expectantly.

"Is that okay?" he asks quietly.

"You want me to cook?"

"We'll order something."

"Then that's okay."

He nods. "Okay."

Okay.

***


	40. Pari passu

Author's Chapter Notes:

"with equal pace"

I use the word "proximity" in this chapter. It is an excellent word that is also an excellent title for an excellent story. If you haven't read it, get your ass out of here and go do so.

After this chapter, of course. :)

Many thanks to everyone who's reviewed (I read all of them) and especially everyone who's e-mailed/written and offered congratulations on Baby Jones. I'm growing a human here, people!

***

Some dreams are better left alone.

A soft breeze swirls around her; the stillness is broken only by the sound of air meandering aimlessly through leaf-laden branches. The noise is soothing, but loud, and Olivia purses her lips in frustration at the disturbance. All she's asking for is one good catnap. That's not unreasonable.

The breeze has plans of its own; it caresses her face, lifts the hair from her forehead.

Her eyelids flutter. Open.

Blink.

Blink blink.

The sky is a vivid, beautiful blue – the kind that she doesn't really notice all that often because whenever she looks up all she can see are those damn skyscrapers. But now the endless expanse of heaven gazes down at her, and all she can do is sigh peacefully and gaze right back.

Sunshine beats down upon the grass around her shade. She cannot see a cloud in the sky, she cannot see anything that would mar the brilliant azure color until—

A speck appears above her, descending slowly; it grows slightly larger with each passing second.

If she squints, she can see that the Something is small and pale as it descends from the space above her; feather-like, it sways gracefully closer. The tree leaves bend and lean and whisper calmly as it floats nearer. Her breathing steadily moves her chest up and down. Her heartbeat lazily keeps pace.

Slow. Peaceful.

Down, down, down.

Fascinated, Olivia continues to stare upward, straining to see the dimensions of the mysterious floating object, struggling to see through the veiled vision that seems to be afflicting her eyes. Closer…

A rumble of thunder rolls in the distance.

Startled, she glances away from the Something above her to survey the changing landscape. The breeze grows stronger.

Her hair is mussed by the wind as she notices the rolling black clouds as they advance from all sides; she looks around to find that she is alone, all alone, in the middle of a field in Central Park, but she is not afraid.

The city skyline is conspicuously absent.

Thunder claps again, and she breathes deeply before deciding that it is time to leave.

Her breath leaves her as she realizes she has nowhere to go.

Crash

A deafening crack splits the sky, and she jumps to her feet in the aftermath of the sonic boom. Smoke begins to creep and fill the space around her, and she turns back to see the tree that had sheltered her, that had swayed and calmed her; its branches have descended, along with half of its trunk, to rest upon the ground; the remaining stump smolders listlessly.

And then the skies open and she stands, drenched and chilled and alone… she lifts her face to the clouds and then she sees it.

It still floats above her, closer now than ever before. She will be able to reach out and touch it soon, and then she can know.

The rain drives on, and the wind becomes a brutal companion; it whips and lashes her hair around her head as she fixes her stare on what's above her.

Closer… closer…

Almost…

She stretches her hand above her head, preparing to let the object land in her palm.

But then it is gone. Disappeared. Behind her, there is movement.

She spins around to find Serena's grey eyes inches from her own, unblinking, steely, bloodshot, determined. With a twist of her mouth, she brings her hand slowly to Olivia's eye level. There is something clenched within her fist.

Drunk, drunk, drunk. Olivia tells herself. Serena is drunk. Shields up.

"Olivia," she hisses, a bit unsteadily, after a moment. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Serena's hand opens and a pink post-it note, its edges charred and brittle, falls to a puddle on the ground.

***

Her eyes snap open and there is no tree, no breeze or thunder. No Serena. No conspicuous pink post-its. Just the springs supporting the mattress of the bunk above her, the chipped paint of the wall in front of her, and the smell of sterile, low thread-count sheets, cheap wool blankets and cement.

Elliot is coming over tonight. To her apartment. For dinner. And conversation.

It all sounds suspiciously like a date.

It is not lost on her that she's broken less of a mental sweat fucking her partner than she is now as the possibility of having him around looms on the horizon. She's seen Elliot the man, in all of his sexually driven, emotionally withdrawn glory. She's pretty sure she wants to keep him around. She's not sure she has any fucking idea how to do so.

"Are you awake?"

She turns over to find Casey stands in the doorway to the crib, staring at her expectantly and drumming her fingers restlessly against her thigh; her perfectly coiffed hair and crisp, starchy business attire immediately make Olivia feel frumpy and obese.

Hope she's enjoying those stilettos, Olivia muses bitterly, heaving herself into a sitting position on the hard mattress. And those ankles – Olivia would sell her soul for some nice, normal ankles. She glances down to her own feet and the joints above them, swollen and tired, stare back at her wearily.

Seven more weeks, they seem to mutter.

"Olivia?"

Casey's fingers have stilled, but her foot is tapping impatiently and Olivia blinks. "Sorry?"

The ADA frowns. "Are you okay? I asked you if tonight was still good."

Tap. Tap tap tap.

Olivia blinks; the memory of her dream still surrounds her like a shroud. "Good?"

"Dinner. Tonight."

"Dinner…" she breathes. Elliot's face flashes in her mind's eye and she sighs heavily. "No, actually. I can't tonight."

"Are you working?" Casey asks incredulously. "I thought Cragen was trying to keep you out of here."

"He is," she huffs. Enduring Cragen's efforts to make her stay in bed while trying to keep himself legally above a discrimination lawsuit has become a part of her daily work routine. "Thanks for reminding me. And I'm not working."

"Oh." Casey frowns the frown of one expecting an explanation. Olivia freezes.

Deflect, deflect, deflect. Prevent awkward/revealing conversation. Avoid topics like Elliot, locker rooms, divorce and post-it notes. Preserve dignity and a semblance of her professional reputation.

Casey is still staring expectantly, and Olivia fights the urge to let it all go to hell and confess. Well, Casey, I would love to go to dinner tonight, but my partner – you remember Elliot? Yeah, that Elliot – is caught up in the throes of a severely misguided attempt to date me because he feels guilty for cheating on Kathy – you remember Kathy? Yeah, that Kathy – with me up against a row of lockers. Did I mention being pregnant when this happened? Well, I was. Then I went to the hospital because adulterous locker room sex during the second trimester of a forty-year-old woman's first pregnancy can cause Braxton-Hicks, but I'm two cocktail hours away from being an unfit mother so I didn't know that. And then Elliot started coming over at night with That Needy Look in his eyes and all I could think of was the fact that his hands seemed to fit every part of my body and he smells like cotton and leather and snores when he sleeps on his back. And then he and Kathy decided to call it quits again – yes, again – and Elliot thinks this whole Being Together thing is a way to start something healthy and functional, so now he is coming over for dinner and it's probably a mistake of cataclysmic proportions but I agreed to it because my ovaries have been calling the shots for months now and goddamn it, I would love to be able to at least have the fucking option to wear stilettos.

But she doesn't say any of that. "How's Monday? Lunch?"

Casey shakes her head. "No good. Deposition. It's supposed to be all day."

"Tuesday?"

Casey cocks an eyebrow. "Or… tonight?"

Olivia's mouth opens to give an explanation that will be a Big Fat Lie. Something like, I'm sick or I'm tired or I need to spend time in my apartment with a box of Wheat Thins and my partner. Oh, wait. Scratch that last one.

She's got nothing.

"Did you make other plans?" Casey asks, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Shit. Shit shit shit. "No." Shit. "Yes."

Both of Casey's eyebrows crawl toward her hairline.

Silence.

"Something important came up," Olivia offers reluctantly.

"Is it Kurt?"

"I said it was important, so…no. I just have some things I need to do."

Casey appraises her silently before she relaxes; Olivia's own shoulder muscles loosen in response. "Well, you owe me dinner. And don't even think about baby names before then."

"You've got it," Olivia agrees, and even to her it sounds half-hearted.

"So why are you up here, anyway?" she asks, sitting down on the bed beside Olivia. She eyes the bump protruding from Olivia's body with the timeless wariness of the single, childless career woman. "Baby wearing you down?"

Olivia slowly heaves herself off of the bunk with a heavy sigh and begins working out her body kinks. These days, even naps leave her feeling drained. "Something like that," she replies dryly. "I can't seem to stay awake lately."

"Remind me not to put you on the stand in the near future," Casey quips with a smirk.

Olivia moves her fingers to her neck, probing and massaging. Her muscles protest the invasion. "Done."

They sit in a comfortable silence before Casey sighs, letting Olivia hear the change of topic before anything is said. "Hey, did you hear about Langan?"

Langan? Random. "Um… no."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not. What about him?"

"Rumor has it he grew a conscience overnight after the Blaine case. It looks like he's trying find a change of scenery."

"Blaine case?"

"Susan Blaine. Crazy lady, killed her twin. Langan got her acquitted and cops got a call four days later—"

"In Brooklyn," Olivia nods as comprehension illuminates her brain. "She the one who stabbed her husband with a steak knife?"

"Same one. Anyway, the husband bleeds out, Langan freaks and disappears for a week. He comes back and starts telling everyone he needs to find 'a more meaningful career.'"

"Doing what?" Olivia snorts derisively. "Don't tell me Langan's starting a soup kitchen for down-and-out sex offenders."

"If only."

"Then what—"

Everyone at the DA's office has been talking about Langan's resignation – he cited ethical issues with his firm."

"They hired him, didn't they?"

Casey waves her hand dismissively. "So after we hear about this new leaf he's trying to turn over, McCoy starts nosing around his ADAs for our professional feedback on Langan's cases. He's been looking for Randle's replacement—"

"Randle…?"

"You've met her – ADA for Major Case. Anyway, McCoy's been asking questions. And I've got it from a very reliable source that Langan's resume was submitted—"

"Liv?"

Both women look up to see Elliot hovering in the doorway. His overcoat exaggerates the looming effect caused by his size.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"It's ten to six. You ready?" His eyes drift to Casey as an afterthought. "Hey."

"Yeah, um—" she lets her mind expand to include the world outside of the crib. "I need to get my things—"

"Wait a goddamn minute," Casey interrupts. "You're blowing me off for Elliot?"

Elliot grins; it reminds Olivia of a shark. "Looks that way."

Novak stands, straightening her skirt. "You'd think she'd get tired of looking at that smart-ass look on your face during the day," she mutters.

"You'd think. Tough break, Novak."

Casey scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Tuesday," she says pointedly to Olivia. With a glare, she pokes Elliot in his good shoulder. "Don't talk about baby names, Stabler."

He stares at her. "What stork died and left you in charge?"

"Oh, the stork is alive and well. He just has excellent legal representation." Ignoring the dual groans at her attempt at humor, she shoulders her bag and pushes past Elliot. "I meant what I said," she throws over her shoulder. "Keep it professional."

***

The night is brisk and cold, and she watches her breath mist in front of her while they wait for Elliot's heater to kick in. She can't feel her nose.

"I think Casey knows," she blurts into her scarf.

Elliot does not look up from adjusting the vents. "Knows?"

"About us."

He frowns for a few moments as he checks his mirrors, pulling the car into traffic. "What does Casey know about us?"

"Elliot."

"Olivia."

"Forget it," she sighs and looks out the window; the city passes by in a stream of streetlights, headlights and pedestrians. She can hear the soft, steady drumming of Elliot's fingers against the steering wheel as he maneuvers through the traffic, his quick exhales as he mutters invective to the other drivers. The normalcy of his behavior is simultaneously grating and comforting -- as if having someone at work know that their whole relationship has undergone a drastic paradigm shift is No Big Deal. It's galling, really.

He pulls the Jeep into a spot close to her building and cuts the engine. Everything is quiet as they sit on her street, and she gets a surreal feeling that they're pulling surveillance on the Olivia Benson of an alternate dimension, one where she would never think about her partner with his pants off or give Kurt Moss enough time to undo his.

"What are we going to do?" she asks when the silence threatens to make her head explode. She looks at Elliot; he seems to feel no such pressure.

"What do you mean?" he asks easily.

"Exactly what I said."

"About Casey?"

"Yes," she replies tersely.

He breathes in deeply, stretching his neck before exhaling, and she knows it's a gesture he uses to buy time while wishing she would Chill the Fuck Out. "Well," he begins, and his tone lets her know just how much she's overreacting. "Let's figure out what we're doing now. Then we'll work the rest out later."

She processes this. "Later?"

It certainly sounds rational.

He nods. "Unless you've changed your mind."

Changed her mind?

Oh.

The date.

The Date.

Has she changed her mind? This is weird, there's no doubt. But she's pretty sure she could get used to it, given the chance – Elliot being Elliot at work, driving her home, coming up for dinner. Washing dishes. Watching baseball on her couch. Drinking her beer. Giving her a neck massage—

Just do this, something in her brain whispers. Enjoy it while you can.

Decision made.

She meets his gaze. "What's for dinner?"

***

Four slices of mushroom pizza later, she feels like grinning, so she does just that; the muscles in her face feel like they'll snap from the lack of practice. "Now, you know I hate to emasculate you—" she pauses as he rolls his eyes. "But ABBA?"

"One song," he grumbles. "One damn song."

"Yeah, one song -- 'SOS.' That's the musical equivalent of a twinkie. Or a bra."

He shrugs and takes a swig of his beer. "That's why it's called a guilty pleasure," he mutters crankily. "And I don't see how you think you have a leg to stand on."

She frowns. "How?"

"How the hell is Keith Partridge any better?"

"David Cassidy," she corrects smugly. "And besides, it was just one song."

He glares. She grins. Moments pass, and the corners of his lips turn upward. "Alright, next question."

"It's your turn."

"What have we already done?"

She thinks for a moment. "Favorite pizza, favorite sandwich, favorite sport, favorite Eastwood movie—"

"Pale Rider."

"Josey Wales. I'm not having this argument again. Um," she holds up her fingers. "Favorite Mel Brooks movie, first kiss, worst rookie moment…" she pauses. "I'm forgetting some."

"And favorite guilty pleasure. So let's do... favorite hair band."

"Aerosmith," she answers quickly.

"Not a hair band," he says, and his smile is smug.

"Are you kidding?"

"They're still around. They're bigger than a hair band."

"They started hair bands. They're a hair band."

He shakes his head. "Pick another one."

"Fine," she huffs. "AC/DC. You?"

"Easy. Mötley Crüe."

"Of course," she grins. "I bet you probably still have an old concert tee shirt lying around somewhere."

"Never had a shirt," he answers over his beer. "We technically weren't allowed to listen to them."

"Why?"

He shrugs. "Catholic church said not to."

"Ah. So who were you allowed to listen to?"

"The Osmonds."

She chuckles. "Of course," she says again.

A comfortable silence descends, and she can tell he's thinking by the way he fingers the label on his bottle.

"It's funny, the rules you come up with when you have kids," he says thoughtfully after a moment. "You hear all the time how you'll end up just like your parents, you know? And you never think you will. But then you're in your daughter's room reading the lyrics booklet to… hell, I don't even know. Britney Spears or some crap." He stares off into the distance, and Olivia fights the urge to smooth out the crease between his brows with her fingertip. "And you start realizing that you don't want your little girl listening to some nympho-in-training telling some bow how to hit her again," he shrugs. "Or whatever. It all comes back around."

She smiles. "Well, you did something right. Your kids think the world of you."

His shoulders tense slightly, and she kicks herself. They still haven't broached the topic of his family without him freezing up, and she's maneuvering his personal issues like a bull in a china shop. Stupid, she berates herself.

"Elliot—"

She is interrupted by the ringing of his phone. They both stare at its illuminated screen as it trills from the coffee table. "Hold on," he mumbles as he sits up to grab it. "Stabler."

Olivia can hear Munch's voice and she suppresses a groan. With the exception of her family-mentioning faux pas, she has genuinely enjoyed herself. Elliot is comfortable and – when he puts his mind to it – charming enough to make her think that all of the misgivings she's felt about seeing him in a non-professional context are almost completely unfounded. She's always been attracted to him, always trusted him as a partner, as a detective... he's even been her best friend, on their good days. But sitting on her couch, digesting junk food and learning each other's personal trivia, she's re-discovering that she likes Elliot. Really likes him. More-than-just-a-bed-buddy likes him.

And now Munch. Dammit.

"No, that's fine," Elliot is saying. "I'll be right there."

He turns to look at her after disconnecting the call. "That was Munch. I'm on call."

"I know."

"I gotta go."

She nods. "I know."

He stands up then, groaning slightly as his joints crack. "Getting old," he grumbles as he offers her a hand.

"I don't want to hear it," she shoots back. "Carry a person on top of your bladder and then get back to me."

He smirks. "You gonna be okay?"

"What, here?"

"Yeah."

"I live here, Elliot," she responds, rolling her eyes. "I think I'll manage."

She kneads the aching muscles in her lower back as he prepares to leave. He shrugs into his jacket and coat and starts tying his shoes when she notices something. "Are those the shoes you were wearing when—"

"When I got shot?" he asks with a tight smile. "Yep."

Her mouth opens. Closes. "They had blood on them, El."

He shrugs. "Yeah. They're good shoes. Ah," he exhales as he stands. "Besides, I cleaned them."

"With what?"

"Soap. Water. Shoe shine."

She stares at him. "Huh."

"What?"

"Nothing, just…" she glances down to his feet before meeting his eyes. "I'm being stupid. Nothing."

He stares back at her for a few seconds before his face relaxes. "Okay," he says.

"Okay."

And here it is. The awkwardness that has been held at bay all evening by adolescent question-games, pizza and years of proximity descends upon them now with a vengeance. Elliot's eyes are surreptitiously running a loop between her eyes, lips and belly. Or maybe it's her eyes, lips and breasts. She can't really tell because she's staring at his face and willing him with every telepathic power at her disposal to kiss her goodnight. Just a quick peck. Nothing earth-shattering. She's willing to settle.

"Well, Munch said to meet him—"

"Right," she says quickly. "Right. You need to go."

"Yeah. Call you later?"

She nods. "Sure."

They stand facing one another for what seems like an hour, but is actually something like nine seconds. Her peripheral vision catches the twitch in Elliot's fingers.

He blinks. "Alright, well… walk me out so you can lock up."

The Awkwardness attacks once more as she holds the door open for him to leave, and he looks at her – really looks at her – one last time before smiling tightly and saying goodnight.

"Goodnight," she responds evenly. And shuts the door.

There is a moment of complete and utter silence until she rests her head on the wall beside the door with her hand still on the doorknob, and exhales shakily. You should have initiated, she thinks to herself irritably. He's the one who started with the damn post-its, you could have at least taken a step—

Her thoughts halt as the knob under her hand turns and the door quickly swings open. Elliot is looking at her like she's crazy. Or maybe like he's crazy. It's hard for her to tell anymore.

"What—" she begins to ask, but there isn't enough time for her to finish her sentence because Elliot moves forward and his hands cradle her face and slide back, back to where his fingers thread themselves through her hair and he pulls her closer and closer until she is there, those are his lips on her lips and they part and she relaxes and opens her mouth and he is in, and she can taste him and his beer and his mushroom pizza and those damn Altoids he insists on popping all the time and everything else that has imprinted itself into his DNA that makes him taste the way he does and it's the most non-awkward thing she's ever felt. She brings her hands up to encircle his wrists and sighs into him, and lips and tongues and hands move together for Not Long Enough before he moans against her and pulls away.

"Sometimes," he says after a moment, and she's glad that she's not the only one whose breathing has picked up. They are both panting like dogs in the summer. Or horny adolescents. "Sometimes," he says again. "You gotta just… get in there."

Breathless, she nods. He grins boyishly, his eyes on her face. "I'll call you later." He turns to leave and raps on the door with his knuckles. "Lock up."

She can hear his footsteps fade into the hallway as she turns her deadbolt and focuses on breathing normally.

So, her brain says smugly. That went well.

Hmph.

It isn't until she is putting the pizza box in the fridge that she realizes her cheek muscles are cramping. With a sigh, she forces the small grin from her face and shuts the refrigerator door.

Her living room furniture looks back at her giddily as she walks to the window and looks out into the chilly New York night. If she stares hard enough, she thinks she can see the taillights of Elliot's Jeep disappearing down her street. Her facial muscles protest again.

Went well, indeed.

***

Chapter End Notes:

Love it? Hate it? Let me know.

I sincerely hope I didn't cheese anyone out with the date. But even if I did, who cares? I like it.


	41. Alea iacta est

Author's Chapter Notes:

"The die has been cast."  
- Caesar

My thanks and professions of love and fidelity to Mousie, who beta'd this chapter like a motherhumpin' rockstar.

***

If there's one thing she's learned from life and Serena, it's that happy moments are few, fleeting and far between.

Her Friday night with Elliot ended as well as a date can end, when the date involves an obscenely pregnant single woman with chronic intimacy issues and a soon-to-be-divorced man with five kids, a wife, and a partner/fuck buddy breathing down his neck. Her lips tasted like him for hours after he left, and she found herself wishing for this to be It, for her whole life to suddenly start looking up because Elliot got up the balls to kiss her goodnight. She doesn't want things to stay the same as they've been for what seems like a lifetime.

The same.

It is Sunday night, and she has spoken to Elliot twice. The first time was to let her know he was catching some sleep in the crib. The second was to tell her that he had a couple hours to spare, but was asked to spend it with his family.

"No problem," she'd said, wallowing in Same.

And now she is sitting on her couch with the remote, mindlessly scanning the channels and cursing her body's inconsistent sleep patterns. It is 1:26 AM, and she is awake, eating a bowl of cottage cheese and feeling like a horrible person for resenting, just the teeniest bit, the existence of Elliot's family and his inability to be who he was supposed to be. What kind of family man fucks his pregnant partner, anyway?

The banging on her door makes her jump. Cottage cheese falls onto the front of her cotton pajama top. "Fuck," she mutters. But then the identity of who is causing the disruption distracts her.

Elliot.

Not the Same, Huang's voice, a months-old echo, whispers in her mind. Not the same. Never the same. But healing, hopeful.

Hopeful.

She opens the door with a neutral expression, but her insides are starting to dance. And then she sees him.

The only thing missing is the smell of lavender.

Before her is Elliot, standing in her hallway in his work clothes, looking lost and tired and angry and…

Drunk?

"'Hope is a thing with feathers,'" Serena had told her once. "Emily Dickinson said that."

The thing with feathers flutters and settles and dies inside of her as she realizes that, once again, her progress with Elliot has reverted from one step forward to ten steps back. She sniffs the air around him and wrinkles her nose in disgust. He doggedly meets her glare.

"You're drunk," she says flatly.

Arguing is pointless, and he knows it. Doesn't mean he won't try. "Not drunk," he slurs with the belligerence of someone who is Very Drunk. She scowls.

"You smell like a fucking frat house." And he does. The scent of liquor is overwhelming, along with the smells of Elliot and the deodorant he wears as they waft off of him; the back of her mind notices that the smell of scotch isn't as cloying when it isn't combined with lavender hand lotion.

"I had a few," he admits. "But I'm not drunk."

"You're doing a great impression," she huffs. Elliot shrugs, and that does it. "I'm shutting the door now."

His brow furrows. "Now, wait—"

"What?" she snaps.

"Liv—"

Her door is still open and he's standing at the threshold, but a good shove should do the trick if he decides to fight her on this. "I need to talk. To you," he slurs.

"We'll talk tomorrow."

"No, we've got—"

"I'm not doing this right now. It's 1:30 in the morning."

His brow wrinkles. "What?"

"You heard me."

"Were—wait—you're asleep?"

She leans her forehead against the edge of the door and sighs and sighs and sighs until her lungs feel empty enough to guarantee she won't scream at him until her larynx explodes. His eyes never leave her face.

Ten steps back.

"Go home, Elliot," she says after a minute spent gathering her resolve. "Just go home. Or go back to whatever hole-in-the-wall bar you crawled out of… just—I can't do… how did you picture this happening?"

"'Livia—"

"_What_?"

"Here," he says thickly, and for the first time she notices the white plastic bag he's holding out to her. "Brought you some vegetables."

She blinks. "Vegetables."

"Veggie tray. Vegetables. You need the vitamins."

"I don't want you to buy me veggie trays."

He shrugs. "I didn't," he says with a smirk. "Computer Crimes had some sort of birthday party yesterday. I found—" he swallows, and she cannot fathom how angry she'll be if he vomits on her doorstep. "I found the leftovers in their fridge."

"You brought me a day old veggie tray."

He nods. "Vitamins."

Awkward.

Silence.

Staring.

Say something. Say anything.

"El…" she begins, finally.

"I've had a shit day, Liv," he blurts. "A real, honest-  
to-God shit day."

She frowns. Join the club, she thinks. "What happened?"

"Don't want to talk about it," he says slowly. "But it was… God, it was shit."

"So you got drunk."

"I'm not dr—"

"Fuck you," she snaps. "You're drunk, and I'm too old and too goddamned pregnant and tired— I can't _do_ this with you."

His eyes widen. "What—?"

"Why are you here?"

For the first time since she's opened her door, his brow wrinkles in thought. He looks confused. "Just…" he says, and his fingers clumsily pinch the bridge of his nose. "There's nowhere else. I don't know." He looks frustrated and beaten.

She knows the feeling.

"I don't know where to be," he says after a moment. "So I'm here."

Ah.

"This isn't a halfway house."

"Liv—"

She stares at him.

Elliot's eyes are blue, the kind of blue people write about in trashy romance novels or art books. And now they are glazed over and bloodshot and wide and staring and desperate and helpless, and Helpless Elliot is something she's never quite prepared herself for. She suspects this is new for him as well, and the thought causes a tiny, tiny corner of her heart to soften. Just a little bit.

"Liv?" he rasps.

Fuck it.

"Come on," she says, opening the door wide to let him inside. "You can sleep on the couch."

He steps through the door, tripping over the threshold and into her. He really does stink.

"How many did you have?" she asks incredulously as he pulls her into an awkward hug. His hands and his face clutch and bury themselves into her; she can feel his warm lips on her jaw.

"Don't know," he says against her neck. "Too many."

"Where were you?"

Silence.

"Elliot—"

"Don't talk," he mumbles into her skin. His weight begins to sag against her.

"Couch, Elliot," she says sharply. The last thing she needs is to spend the night pinned under the pressure of her daughter and the dead weight of her dumbfuck blitzed partner.

He pulls away and slides his arm around her shoulder; she uses the opportunity to walk him into the living room. He stumbles toward the couch, leaning against her side.

"The hell?" he slurs as he sees the bowl of cottage cheese. "Is this—"

"Lay down," she says flatly.

He complies, flopping onto his back in a whoosh of trench coat and alcohol. He opens his eyes and meets her glare. "Room's spinning," he mutters.

"I'll bet," she retorts sharply, snatching her remote out from under his shoulder. The television flashes and is still. "Now sleep this off."

"Livia," he mumbles.

"We'll talk tomorrow."

"Livia," he breathes. And then he is asleep.

Expressionless, she regards his reclining figure for twenty seconds before her mind is made up. Moments later, she returns to the couch with a glass of water and the bottle of Tylenol from her medicine cupboard, placing them on the coffee table. She eyes his sleeping form again, noting that his legs are too long for her throw; his shoes jut conspicuously out from underneath the blanket and she wonders if he'll ever get new ones. She follows the line of his legs, up his torso and across his right shoulder, noticing for the first time that something is clutched in his left hand.

Go to bed, her brain suggests. Deal with this in the morning.

See what he's holding, another voice shouts. But she's seen the stems and she already knows what she'll find.

Inevitability overwhelms her, and she reaches for his wrist and pulls his heavy arm up before digging her fingers underneath his, prying them away from his palm.

The floral scent overwhelms her as she stares down at the two roses in Elliot's hand. The petals are bruised and crushed. Obliterated.

Perfect.

With a sigh, she drops his hand and goes to bed. Her daughter supplies a barrage of violent kicks as she climbs under the covers, and Olivia spends the rest of the night echoing the sentiment as Elliot's snores rumble through the wall.

It's supposed to be lavender, her mind supplies drowsily in the moments before succumbing to sleep. Not roses. Lavender.

Lavender.

***

Some things remain untouched by time.

Even as she grew older, Serena Benson's hands remained beautiful – the long, elegant fingers tapered gracefully into perfect fingernails, half-moons rising above smooth cuticles, the tips squared and clean, the surfaces buffed and polished. She never cracked her knuckles and would occasionally play the viola she'd had since high school, and Olivia would marvel at the grace of the slender, nimble fingers as they danced across the viola's strings or held a wineglass.

Serena cherished her hands.

"Moisturize, Libby," she would chide from behind her magazine at the kitchen table. "Dish soap will age them faster than anything. You don't want to be the only ten-year-old in the world with old-lady hands."

Olivia would finish rinsing and drying before Serena beckoned her to the table, pulling the lavender moisturizer from her purse. "You have a hang-nail," Serena murmured once, as she squirted a dollop of moisturizer into her own palm. "Haven't you been using the cuticle shears I bought you?"

"Yes," Olivia had muttered defensively. "They don't work."

"You have to use them properly. Look at this—you've been cutting _into_ the cuticles…"

It was always the same, those lectures. Serena would wax on about the importance of consistent skin care, and Olivia would watch in awe as her mother's hands became something more than a placeholder for a tumbler of scotch. The skin of her palms was smooth, almost translucent in its softness, her thumbs working evenly over Olivia's hands as they rubbed in the lavender moisturizer. The scent was overwhelming.

"There," Serena would say, inspecting Olivia's hands with a wink. "Now go play."

Hours would pass before Olivia ventured back into the kitchen to put Serena's scotch under the sink before jostling her mother awake. She'd shaken Serena's right arm as it stretched across the kitchen table, the dainty hand limp and open and reeking of lavender.

***

Her bladder is yelling at her to get the hell up and begin the evacuation process. She groans and looks at the alarm clock.

7:45.

She heaves herself up with a grunt she thinks she learned from watching a hippopotamus special on Animal Planet and waddles to the restroom, and it isn't until she lathers the soap on her hands that she recognizes the silence in the living room.

Elliot. Drunk. Water. Roses. Lavender.

Shit.

"Liv?"

Her head snaps up to the mirror to meet his gaze. He looks like hell.

"Morning," she says flatly. "How's the headache?"

He shrugs. "Not too bad. Thanks, uh," he falters.

"Yeah."

Elliot's mouth opens, and his face almost twists in frustration when nothing comes out. She's used to it, though, so.

So.

He clears his throat. "I, uh. Guess I'd better head in."

Not an ounce of surprise can be found anywhere in her body. "You have another suit in your locker?"

"Why?"

"You stink." And she's pretty sure she means it metaphorically as well.

He doesn't react until she turns around and tries to get by him. He moves stiffly out of her way, and she can feel his eyes on her as she makes her way back to bed.

"Ah," she sighs, sinking into the mattress. Her tired, swollen feet have become insatiable for rest. Work is shit – Cragen won't let her pick up anything exceeding three ounces and she's tired of everyone's paperwork. Her personal life is shit – she has nothing to speak of that isn't related to work, except for Kurt, and he's the one who put her here in the first place. Or maybe not, maybe it isn't Kurt's fault. She's sure she would have found some other way to fuck it all over, to end up right back here on her bed watching Elliot loom awkwardly in her doorway, looking for ways to say things that will make her not glare at him. Good luck, she thinks sourly.

"Go to work, Elliot," she says after a silence that is filled with everything he'll never say. "You're going to give yourself an aneurysm."

He stares, and she realizes that they've gotten pretty damn good at this whole Not Blinking Until The Other One Says Uncle thing. Too bad.

"I know you're sorry for showing up three sheets to the wind. I know you had a shit day yesterday. And you're welcome for the couch and the Tylenol. Just go to work."

He blinks. "I—" clears his throat. Looks at his watch. "We've got a minute. I'll wait for you."

At this point, she wishes she could say the same. But the baby decided to channel Billy Blanks until the wee hours of the morning, she's tired, and she's pissed at life and the people in it. Billy's miniature feminine counterpart flutters sympathetically.

And then something in her brain clicks and it all comes perfectly together in her head as the stars of pissy, knocked-up bitches align for the first time in months. Olivia settles back into her pillow and shuts her eyes, closing him off, down, and out. She knows he's frowning.

"I'm not going in today," she announces after a moment, and the finality in her tone pleases her. "I'm starting my maternity leave."

***

Chapter End Notes:

Reviews make me write faster.

Reviews that don't tell me to write faster make me write at speeds never before achieved by the pregnant human female.

Thanks for reading! Hearts!


	42. Nemo gratis mendax

Author's Notes:

**Nemo gratis mendax** - _No man lies freely. _

Thanks to Mousie for being a kick-ass beta, indeed.

Thanks to everyone else for reading.

*

Maternity leave.

Leave.

Gone.

Olivia's chest rises and falls with her even, steady breaths and he'd rather her yell or scowl or tell him he's an asshole for showing up with a blood alcohol content of a peroxide bottle, but she isn't. She's silent and steady and he wishes he had the balls to provoke her to the fury that he knows how to deal with.

He wants to be one of those people who has the excuse of ignorance, the kind that end up in a shithole life and has no idea how they got there. But he can look back and pinpoint all of the wrong decisions and visualize how he should have done it better, because he knows better. Black and white. Right and wrong.

It's how he was raised.

*

A soldier of Christ, Father Bennett had said kindly as he patted Elliot's face. "May you live all your days as a soldier of Christ." Then he'd moved on to the next young man in line, murmuring a hybrid of Latin and English, conferring blessings and exhortations in the Sacrament of Confirmation as Elliot remained uncharacteristically still in the awestruck reverence of the occasion's gravity.

A soldier of Christ.

The rosary he'd received from his grandfather was used with regularity after his Confirmation; he learned the Fifteen Mysteries and repeated them for his parents with gusto, ignoring his father's derisive snort as his mother beamed.

"These are beautiful," Mrs. Russo remarked one autumn afternoon as she spied the beads lying on the coffee table.

"Dan's father gave them to Elliot for his confirmation," Bernadette answered. "El's already memorized the Mysteries."

"You gotta little priest here?" Mrs. Russo quipped as Elliot busied himself finding his other shoe.

"There's a little too much cowboy in him for the priesthood, I think," Mrs. Stabler had remarked indulgently. "Maybe when priests carry pistols…"

As a young marine, Elliot would sit on his cot in the FOB barracks at night, absently fingering the beads of the rosary he'd inherited from his grandfather while he pondered the priest's words. His fingertips would run effortlessly over each bead as echoes of lessons learned in Catholic school would whisper through his subconscious.

Saturdays were to be devoted to the Joyful Mysteries; he remembers trying to focus long enough to meditate on each one. The Annunciation…. Humility. The Visitation…. Loving one's neighbor as oneself. The Nativity…. Detachment from the world's riches. The Presentation at the Temple…. Purity. The Finding in the Temple…. Wisdom and conversion….

A soldier of Christ. A soldier looking for Christ. A soldier begging Christ to keep him bullet-free so he could see his wife and daughter again. A soldier, alone on his cot, listening to the artificial calm afforded by industrial aluminum walls, surrounded on all sides by sand and sleeping soldiers.

Weeks and months passed, and the beads gradually took on a different significance until one evening he realized he was absently running his fingers over each bead, and the Mysteries of the Hereafter no longer whispered through his mind. With each decade he saw a different face. Kathy. Maureen. His mother. Himself.

He's still not sure about God or prayer or the Holy Roman Church, but he's sure he did something right in that damn desert, because he came home in '91 and promptly impregnated his young, beautiful blonde wife with their second daughter. He'd traded in his cookie-dough camouflage DCUs for the NYPD's standard blue and he'd attended church with his family at least twice a month and he had a beat and a career and a union rep and a friendly rapport with his neighbors.

He'll never get that life back, and he hasn't quite made his peace with it but the stabbing pain that used to accompany the realization has faded with time to become a dull, chronic ache between his lungs. The years ahead of him used to feel promising. Comfortable. Now he wonders if he'll be one of those old cops shuffled into a nursing home because his kids won't know him well enough to move him into the room above the garage.

It's Sunday, and he meanders around his house in something like a daze. His time with Olivia on Friday night has put something in his brain, and it could feel like an obligation but it's more like a desire to talk to her again, so he'd called his partner to let her know he was spending his Sunday with the family.

"See you later?" he'd said after a moment of hesitation, because as relieved as he is that they can talk to each other in a non-work atmosphere, he still has no clue how to treat her like she's more than a partner without freaking both of them out.

"Tomorrow," she'd answered.

"See you then," he confirmed before hanging up.

He puts his phone on what used to be his bedroom dresser before noticing that Kathy has packed some of his belongings for him. He spots the worn string of rosary beads on the top of a pile in one of the boxes; numbly, he picks them up and retreats into Eli's room.

Dickie – Dick – is sitting on the floor with his little brother, reading a book while Eli plays games whose rules only an infant can understand.

"Hey," he says quietly.

Dickie looks up. "Hey."

"Mom put you on baby-sitting duty?"

His son shrugs. "Just until she comes back from Grandma's."

Elliot frowns. Kathy's mom has always been Grammy… "Grandma Stabler's?"

"Yeah."

The frown intensifies. Bernadette has become more and more reclusive in the last several years, and he can't imagine Kathy dropping by for a social call. Especially now.

"She wanted to talk to her about you guys. You know, divorcing."

He can feel his face twist into a scowl and his hand tightens on the beads in his fist. He's not sure how comfortable he is with his mother hearing only Kathy's side of things. "She say when she'd be back?" Dickie shrugs.

This has been the theme of every conversation between them since he and Kathy had broken the news of yet another change in the family infrastructure. Father questions, son evades.

"Ba, ba, ba," Eli crows. A bucket of blocks has been upended and its contents are scattered on the floor around him and Dickie.

"What're you reading?" Elliot asks, settling into the nursing chair.

Dickie shrugs. "'Count of Monte Cristo.'"

"Yeah? What's it about?"

"You've never read it?" he asks skeptically. "It's required reading."

Elliot shrugs. "It's been awhile since high school. No, Eli," he commands as his chubby-cheeked son begins to crawl under the crib. Dickie absently picks the baby up and moves him away from the no-no.

"A guy gets accused of something he didn't do and they put him in jail. Then the guy who accused him marries the first guy's girlfriend."

"Sounds depressing."

Dickie shrugs. "It's alright. Eli, no," he mutters as the baby has stopped trying to explore the room and has settled for trying to put Dickie's book in his mouth.

Elliot sighs. "I got him," he says, picking Eli up and sitting back in his chair. His knees creak as he settles and he feels too damn old to be holding a baby that's not a grandkid. Not that he's ready for that yet, either. Maureen can take her sweet damn time, especially with that joke she's been with these last several months. David's his name, he remembers. Or Dave. He's never met him; Maureen's been more secretive than—

"How's Olivia?"

His jaw and his stomach clench at the same time, and he fights the urge to ignore the question. Son asks, father evades. And then the guilt settles in. "She's good," he answers evenly.

"Oh."

"Why do you ask?" he questions, swallowing back panic and bile. There are some failures he can handle and some that he can't, and something he will not be able to deal with is his teenage son discovering that Elliot is closer to the cliché of the burned-out, tail-chasing cop than he'd like to think.

Olivia would kick his ass if she ever heard him refer to her as a piece of tail. The thought makes him smirk and wonder what she's doing at the moment.

Dickie's sullen answer snaps him to attention. "Just asking." He swallows. "Kathleen said that's where you've been staying since… since the family dinner."

"Family—oh." Family dinner. As in the family dinner where the kids came home for pot roast and admissions of their parents' personal failures.

"Are you?"

"Am I—am I staying with Olivia?"

Dickie shrugs. "Whatever."

"Dick," Elliot says calmly, learning forward in his chair. "Olivia and I are friends. I've been staying in the crib." It's a lie, well it's mostly a lie, but there is some truth in it. He's spent his last several mornings shaving above one of the department's bathroom sinks. "Next time Kathleen says something like that—"

"She went looking for you," Dickie mumbles.

The hell? "What?"

"Kathleen. You said you were sleeping at work so she went there."

"When?"

"Friday."

Friday. "What time?"

"I don't know. Maybe 9:30."

At 9:30 he'd been at Olivia's, drinking beer and asking her ridiculous shit like, What's your favorite hot dog topping, and he can't explain the sudden emptiness in his stomach when he realizes he'd missed his daughter. She would have been furious, and her anger would have fueled the paranoia she already seemed to harbor toward him and Olivia. Not that he's been doing a lot lately to prove her wrong.

"I was on call Friday night," he says carefully. For some reason, keeping the deceit to a minimum is the best he can do right now. "John and I caught a case."

"That's bullshit."

Elliot and Dickie's attention snaps to the doorway where Kathleen is standing, glaring at her father. He's not sure of a lot of things, but he's still a father, and a Catholic one at that. "Watch your mouth, young lady," he says sternly as he stands. The rosary falls to the floor.

If she would just listen and let this go—

"John was there," she utters defiantly, and his heart stops. "John was there and I asked him where you were and he said you were with Olivia."

"Kathleen," he says slowly, approaching her like an armed suspect. Eli, sensing the tension, begins to twitch in his arms. "I want you to listen to me—"

Her face twists and he cannot control the panic that is gripping his gut. Not this, he thinks. Not the kids. "Why should I?" she spits. "Just because I'm old enough to not buy into the shit you feed us—"

"Kathleen!" he yells. "That is enough."

Eli's whimpers are turning into full-blown cries but he is almost to her, stepping over Dickie who is still on the floor and has been rendered temporarily speechless with horror. He just needs to grab her hand or hold her and just tell her that he's sorry, that he loves her, that he's a shit father and he knows it but he's going to do better, so much better if she would just not hate him for the man he's become—

Almost. He's almost to her.

"Baby, listen to me," he pleads. "I know what you're thinking, I know you're—"

"You don't know shit," she snarls. "Fuck you."

He freezes.

She is halfway down the stairs before Eli's sobs jolt him into motion and he rushes after her. Elizabeth rounds the corner as he wheels around into the kitchen and they collide; Eli's cries turn into shrieks.

"Shh, shh," he says hurriedly to the baby. "Lizzie, you okay?"

"Yeah, what's—"

But he is gone, into the kitchen. It's empty.

"Kathleen!"

"I ihate/i you," she screams, and he is moving instantly. Living room. "We all fucking ihate/i you!"

He cannot hear, he cannot hear because there is a scarlet haze that is coming down over his ears and his eyes and his throat and he fights it, fights it because this is the red flag that tells him he is about to utterly and completely lose his shit. His ears echo with Eli's screams and Kathleen's screams and the thudding of his own heartbeat and everything is so well and truly fucked that he just doesn't know which way is up anymore.

His red-faced daughter is standing in front of his television, shrieking accusations and profanity and professions of loathing and he fights the clenching of his fists because he can feel Eli trembling, or maybe it's him, but who the fuck cares anymore because everything's falling apart.

"Why are you still ihere/i?!" Kathleen screeches, and then his feet are moving and his hand wraps around her upper arm and the words start tumbling out of him.

"Goddamnit," he yells, over and over. "I am your father. Goddamnit!"

And then he can't stop screaming things because everything within him is telling him that she's right, that he's through, that it's all gone to hell and it's his fault. Should have, should have, should have echoes in his brain and he can't think of anything past his own fuck-ups and Kathy at Maureen's first ballet recital and the first time Eli opened his eyes and the look on Olivia's face when she told him she was pregnant and it's all an angry haze and Kathleen is sobbing and his fingers feel her trying to pull away and—

"Elliot?"

He turns to see his wife, his ex-wife, his whatever the hell she is standing in the doorway, her face a mask of horror. For several moments the only sound is Eli screaming and Kathleen sobbing and his own harsh, ragged breaths. He doesn't see Kathy approaching but all of a sudden she is there, taking the baby and her face is like stone and he knows what she's going to say.

"Get the hell out."

*

He got the hell out.

And now all he remembers from the night is scotch. And vodka. And the smell of Olivia as he'd collapsed into her arms and onto her couch.

*

Maternity leave.

She is still staring at him calmly, but it's that passive-aggressive Olivia stare that means he's in deep shit and most of him is worried but the rest of him is pissed, angry that he's fucked up yet another relationship, angry at her belligerent attitude, angry that she couldn't exercise more self-control and not fuck that asshat of a newspaper editor, angry—

"You got a problem with that?" she asks, her eyebrow cocked.

Gone. Gone gone gone, all of it is gone. Memories of laughter with Kathy and the kids are eons away, he feels like an old brick wall of faded graffiti and cigarette burns, rubble. All of it's rubble and he's so fucking sick and tired of good things shorting out before he's ready.

He hadn't realized he was moving, but he is suddenly beside her bed, watching her stare up at him with an expression halfway between amusement and annoyance. "Are you trying to scare me?" she asks with a smirk.

He shakes his head. He cannot stop his eyes and they zero in on her mouth. She shifts her body slightly away from him, but she's already in the middle of the bed and it's not like she's running anywhere anytime soon. But she doesn't need to, he realizes that now, because all that she's ever had to do to break him down completely was to tell him to fuck off and mean it, really mean it. And she looks so close to it that he snaps. The scarlet haze descends again and he can feel his fists clench and damn it, can't she do anything other than glare at him?

Fuck it. He moves.

Abandons the high wire. Dives into the volcano.

He is on the bed, on his knees and his hands grab her face as he roughly descends onto her lips, his fingers envelope her skull as he bites at her with a desperate mouth, and he'll stop if she doesn't want this, he'll stop but she has to tell him because right now, this moment, she is all he has and he's someone else entirely because of it.

Her hands come up and he can feel her fingers as they dig into his skin and she wants this, for fuck's sake she wants this and why? But it doesn't matter because fuck it all, he's so tired of not pretending they're the only two people in the world and he groans into her mouth as her knee comes up and roughly grazes his erection and—

"Fuck!" he swears as she bites down on his lip. Hard.

She pushes him away in his hesitation and struggles to pull herself into a sitting position. Olivia's eyes are wide and brown and watery, and for a moment he dwells on the horrifying idea that he has forced himself onto her, into her bed and her mouth, but she is shaking her head now and he can't look away from her muddy dark eyes.

"Fuck," he says again as he works on regaining control of his breathing. "Liv—"

"Shut up," she says, quiet and sharp.

His ears echo for an interminable amount of time with his heartbeat and their breathing. He backs away from her in swift, jerky movements and sits with his back to her, waiting.

Waiting.

The date that happened in the next room thirty-six hours prior seems a million miles and years away.

"That's not how we're doing this," she says finally. "This…" she sighs. "Whatever the hell this is. You're not going to caveman your way out of—Jesus, Elliot, I'm almost nine months along!"

He knows this. He is acutely aware that it has been nine months since Moss has been here, with her, like ithat/i. He swallows thickly.

Minutes pass. The silence in the room hangs over their heads like a mushroom cloud, and he thinks the imagery is fitting because what just happened feels like an atomic blast and he wishes she would just tell him to go. Or stay.

"Elliot," she whispers thickly.

He jerks his head around to meet her gaze and his heart stutters. Dark eyes, brown eyes, sad eyes stare evenly back at him, closed and shuttered and firmly in control. For an instant, he flashes to Kathy's face as she took Eli away from him, the coldness of her eyes and the granite-like set of her jaw.

Olivia's sigh abruptly brings him back to the present.

"I think you should go to work," she says after a moment.

So he does.

*

Author's Notes:

I am going to start responding to as many reviews as possible… life, or no life, this has got to happen.

Thanks!


	43. Quod incepimus confuciemus

Author's Chapter Notes:

"What we have begun, we shall finish."

Thanks for the sweet reviews, everyone. Baby is doing well - bladder, not so much.

***

At the moment, she finds herself strangely indifferent to thoughts of Elliot.

Cragen had called to check on her, and the tone of his voice seemed to imply that yes, he's glad she'd finally come to her senses and acted like a normal mother-to-be by getting off her feet, but would she mind hurrying the process up because Elliot's temper is once again running amok in the bullpen. "I'm transferring someone from Vice to even up the numbers until you get back," he'd told her, and she would have called his tone 'wistful,' except it was Cragen and he didn't do pansy-ass 'wistful' tones like a blossoming Victorian debutante.

Better the temper there than here, she wants to say, but he'd never actually verbalized anything about her erstwhile partner and it wasn't her place.

Elliot calls three times before noon. She ignores two of them.

"Yes?" she asks curtly as his number pops up on her phone's display for the third time.

"Where have you been?" he demands angrily. "I've been trying to call—"

She rolls her eyes and clicks 'end.' The phone is vibrating with his name before she can put it down again.

The thing about Elliot, she realizes, staring at the jittery plastic technology on her coffee table, is that _everything_ is about Elliot.

Elliot, I'm going undercover because I heard your voice when Gitano sliced my neck open and it made me question everything we've ever said to one another.

Elliot, I'm going to have a bitch-fit because you went sleuthing with Hendrix and apparently, I can't handle some M.D. with fried hair sniffing around you for a way to relieve the stress of working with apeshit crazies.

Elliot, I'm pregnant. I'm going to fuck you up against a row of lockers because you don't approve of Kurt and god knows I'm a sucker for you being a jealous asshole.

Elliot, I'm going on maternity leave because I'm tired of feeling my pregnant ass hanging in a state of suspended animation whenever you and I decide not to be adults and stare at each other without saying anything. But then again, talking never was our thing, so…

She was never this person; the girl or the woman or the old lady who rearranged her fucking DNA to have someone around. Solitude has had its ups and downs, but at least she'd never had to worry about things like being the other woman, or giving birth for the first time at forty-one years old. It's not her, none of it is. Or it wasn't, but it is now, and her brain hasn't had enough time to play catch-up.

This isn't me, she's found herself saying over the last several months. I'm not this person.

And neither is Elliot. At least, not the Elliot she knew; although, if her still-vibrating phone is any indication, Elliot of Yesteryear has decided to take a fucking hiatus.

There are so many things she could say to him at the moment, and if he had any damn idea of what's swirling around in her head, he'd stop calling and let her sort it all out before she blurts some of the stupid things floating around in her consciousness. Things like, _Elliot, I don't think this is working. Elliot, this isn't right. Elliot, we don't do well together unless we're hot on the heels of a serial rapist, and I don't think that's an ideal foundation for a healthy relationship._

Elliot, go back home.

Elliot, leave me alone.

Elliot, I'm not happy.

Elliot, I'm moving to Iceland, and no one rapes each other up there because it's too damn cold, so don't bother following me.

Her phone vibrates yet again, and she stares at it pensively, feeling the weight of her words as they slosh around in her skull and wishing for something to make the world turn right-side-up again.

*

"What's wrong with your goddamn phone?"

His voice startles her from her slumber, and she slowly opens her eyes to find Elliot in the doorway of her bedroom, his shoulders defiantly squared under the weight of his trench coat. She loves that coat, it turns into a cape when he runs and for several seconds he becomes a superhero. That's where he belongs, anyway – in a world where good and evil are as clearly defined as they are in his head. Her own world has gradually become a mural of every shade of grey, and she isn't sure but one of those shares matches the color of his eyes when he looks at her the way he is now. Flat. Angry. Blue-grey ice chips fringed with inky lashes.

"Not sure," she replies sarcastically, looking at her bedside clock. It's almost seven o'clock; she must've dozed off. "Other than the fact that it's been ringing off the hook all day."

He approaches her bed slowly, his footsteps accompany her heartbeat and she wishes the rest of her would follow the leader and pay attention to what her brain has been saying for months. He's good, but not for her.

Not for her.

"What if there'd been an emergency?" he asks, and his voice is too quiet, too calm. She fights a shudder.

"There wasn't," she counters.

"I needed to talk to you."

"Now you want to talk? What if I don't?"

"We always do what you want," he says through clenched teeth.

"Is that why you lunged at me this morning?" she snaps, hoisting herself to a sitting position. "Because I wanted it to happen?"

"Olivia, I didn't come here to—"

"No, you came here to talk. You're ready to talk now, right? So let's talk."

She'd pictured this going differently, maybe with her standing over him as he cowered in a corner instead of this – her tucked under her comforter, reclining against her bed pillows as his shadow looms ominously over the foot of her bed. He came in with the upper hand, but she'll be damned if it stays that way with the shit he's been pulling.

"What am I to you, Elliot? That's the issue. You're feeling chatty – let's talk about that."

He glares at her the way he glares at smarmy pedophiles who prattle on about ageism and the legitimacy of NAMBLA. "Oh, are we _labeling_ this now?"

"Excuse me?"

"Locker room," he bites out. "The first time."

She blinks. "What—"

"'Let's not label this,'" he says mockingly. "Isn't that what you said?"

"No, I didn't—"

"Yeah, Olivia. You did." He steps closed to the bed, and his knees bump the mattress. She doesn't look away from his face, but her peripheral vision tells her that his hands are bunched into fists. She has no doubt that he'd be turning her face into a flesh-and-blood Stabler locker story if she was a man.

If she was a man, he probably wouldn't have had sex with her, but that's neither here nor there.

"Do you have any idea—any idea at all—what I've done?" he asks in a low voice. "You weren't—this wasn't—" his eyes close tightly and he swallows, hard enough for her to hear, before they snap open again. He looks desperate, furious and lost, his jaw muscles bunching and unbunching.

"Elliot—"

"I think about it, all the time, what we've done," he rasps.

"Elliot—"

_"This is not who I am."_

The words leave his mouth and fall onto the counterpane, quivering and covered in the blood of his pride. Her thoughts from earlier echo in her brain as they come alongside his own. Her anger momentarily forgotten, she stares at him, wide-eyed. He stares back, his face a mask of shock and fury as the implications of his statement sink in.

"I'm not that guy," he murmurs roughly; she tries not to flinch as his vocal chords grind in a discordant cacophony against her eardrums. "I had everything. My family…it wasn't great, but maybe it could've—maybe I could've gotten better. And now…" his voice trails off, his eyes still locked with hers. She can feel her face twist, but his expression doesn't change. It's like he can't see her.

Her anger. Her power. It's MIA at the moment. Damn it.

"Do you think I like this?" he asks after several moments pass in heavy silence. "Do you think I like what it's made me? What it's made _you_?"

Numbly, she shakes her head.

"I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to talk in the locker room." She opens her mouth weakly, and he cuts her off. "Don't tell me I don't remember it right, or whatever bullshit you've got going on in your head. I remember everything."

He seems to shrug in slow-motion, and his trench coat falls to the floor. "I remember how pissed you were about me taking you to your appointments. I remember feeling your stomach, and grabbing your face." His suit jacket joins the trench coat. "Because my wedding ring matched some of your hair," he says flatly. "I remember thinking that I had the prettiest fucking partner in the NYPD. I remember kissing you." His legs move, he toes off his shoes as his fingers loosen the knot of his necktie. "I shoved you against that locker like a goddamn frat boy. I remember," he murmurs, his eyes never leaving hers as she stares at him, transfixed and terrified. "I remember being inside you, feeling like I was dreaming, hoping it wasn't real, because dreaming about it didn't make me a cheater." He kneels on the bed, moving so his arms are on either side of her hips. "I remember how you tasted, what you said. How you sounded." He moves up, his taut stomach muscles grazing over her bump as his face moves closer to hers. She presses herself back into her pillows, her hands uselessly lying on the bedspread outside of his. Against her will, her left index finger moves over to cover his little finger. A little further and she'll be brushing against the blank space where his ring used to be. His breath fans across her face, and she fights the urge to close her eyes. "I remember how it felt," he continues in a low voice, his mouth twisted into something between a smirk and a grimace. "I remember all of it, Liv. And after it was over, I remember that you couldn't get me out of there fast enough."

Say something, say anything, her brain begs as he hovers over her. Her thoughts from earlier volunteer themselves in an eager frenzy, jumping and jumbling and she can smell starlight peppermint on his breath as it mixes with a hint of his aftershave that he must have put on at work.

Something, anything.

"I think I should move to Iceland," she murmurs, closing her eyes in defeat. She feels him move closer and her traitorous body tenses in anticipation.

"Don't fucking bite me again," he growls, and she's lost.

Because the thing about Elliot, she thinks as his mouth captures hers hungrily, is that everything is about Elliot. And it seems she needs to either learn how to fight it with more success or just surrender to it, to the feeling of his five o'clock shadow as it rubs against her face, of his strong thighs as they straddle her legs, of his tongue as it battles with hers, of the starchy feel of his shirt as her fingers clench around its collar.

This isn't healthy, she thinks for the millionth time.

This is almost over, something else, something dark inside of her whispers. Have him while you still can.

So she does.

*

She's not sure how long they spend on her bed, fully clothed and rounding second base, but her bladder eventually brings her back to earth. Elliot rolls off of her and collapses onto his back with a groan, his erection tenting the front of his pants as she waddles to the bathroom.

The click of the bathroom door shutting gives her the space she needs.

Think, she screams at herself. Think, think, think.

The rest of her is too hyped up on pheromones and Elliot to pay attention, but her brain takes advantage of the closed bathroom door and takes charge again.

Think.

Think.

Think.

Go with what you know, her brain says matter-of-factly. You know that you and Elliot are close. You know that Elliot cares about you. You know that you care about him. You know from past experience that the sex is good. You know from the last however-long-it's-been that you enjoy making out with him.

You could live without him, her brain continues. You're strong. You've got bigger things to think about than whether or not you should engage in awkward third trimester intercourse with your partner. Your partner.

And that's what it all comes down to, she realizes. She loves Elliot – she might even be in love with Elliot – but they're playing with fire. Each one of them is moving towards an event horizon, an indefinite destination that threatens to redefine who they are in a basic, primal way. Elliot is a protector. And so is she.

Can she stop protecting herself? Can he?

To her dismay, she realizes that she is back to square one, back to not knowing how to proceed. Elliot is saying things now, and that's good. But how long can this truce last? How much more can they stretch this before they go back to their natural state – growling at the other one, jealously guarding their own underbellies. It's a game, she realizes. A sick, sad game where they hurl themselves at each other, over and over again, until all that's left is rubble and ashes. Maybe, in another time, she could have lived with that.

Serena had chosen her lover long before Olivia was ever old enough to know there was a choice. She'd seen the loving caresses of her mother's elegant fingers as they handled the bottle; the mindless hope in Serena's grey eyes at the thought of the numbness a nightcap could provide. Serena had sold her soul, given her life and her identity to something that made her lonely life a little more bearable, a little less agonizing. Her kingdom for a drink.

And here Olivia sits, forty years later, faced with a choice.

Pick your poison, her mother's voice whispers.

In her mind's eye, she sees a happy ending. She sees Elliot in a hospital room, smiling down at the pink bundle in his arms. She sees him with a stroller. She sees him in his suit on a sidewalk as a little girl with dark hair and eyes tugs on his hand, sees him grin down at her as she bounces with excitement, her Hello, Kitty! backpack jumping with her movements. She sees Elliot at a soccer game, at kitchen table, at a high school graduation. She sees him sitting at a desk in the bullpen with two more pictures on it.

She sees Elliot the way she wants him to be. Happy. Whole. Healthy.

Not once does she see Kathy, or Maureen, or any of his other children. Not once does she imagine her little girl playing second fiddle to his family. His real family. Which leads her to believe that she hasn't really been seeing Elliot at all.

This is not who I am.

She remembers earlier, the way his fists and his jaw clenched, how his eyes were sharp and hard but there was something there, something pleading. Begging her to know what he was saying.

Over the years, he's been the quiet hero, the rock – Captain America with an anger management problem. But now he's lost, and she has no fucking clue where to find him. She's pretty sure saddling him with another baby isn't going to do it.

Think, her brain urges. Think think think.

Elliot's close. Elliot cares. Elliot's lost.

Lost.

The sudden knock on the door startles her, and she jumps. "Liv?" he says through the door. "You okay in there?"

"I'm fine," she answers. Her voice is surprisingly even.

"Just checking. You've been in there awhile."

"Uh, yeah. I'll be out in a minute."

Her options are limited: be with Elliot, or be without him.

He cares. He's close. He's lost.

So are you, her mother says smugly.

And for once, Serena is right.

***

Chapter End Notes:

**Reviews are to a knocked-up hollelujah as salsa and bananas are to a knocked-up Olivia. No, really.**

Thanks for reading!


	44. Rident Stolidi

Author's Chapter Notes:

**Here it is, at last. Thank you everyone for EVERYTHING. Your comments were overwhelming and wonderful. Cyber-support group, I thank you and hope you enjoy...**

_"Fools laugh"_

*

Time has ceased its march.

The bathroom is quiet, the baby is still, and her own heartbeat seems to have slowed to silence, slow and steady thumps to remind her that she cannot isolate herself forever.

"Liv?"

One more reminder.

*

It is an October evening, and the autumn air carries the faint smell of cigars and cologne into the living room as Serena's footsteps announce her arrival.

She isn't alone.

"Olivia," Serena announces calmly from their apartment's foyer, resplendent in a red dress, her grey eyes highlighted with mascara and steeled with sobriety. "I want you to meet Jim."

Jim is cold and dry and tall, and Olivia approvingly notes the way his kind eyes never dip below her face.

"I've heard a lot about you, Olivia," he says with a smile, the scent of October and aromatic tobacco continuing to effortlessly roll off of him in waves. His plaid scarf – the tartan of his family's clan, he tells her later – rests jauntily beneath the lapels of an expensive-looking coat.

Jim is kind and good and sober – the first former drunk in his large Scottish family, he jokes. He laughs at Serena's caustic jokes, stocks the kitchen with grocery products that can't be bought at a package store and helps Olivia with her Chemistry homework exactly two times.

Four weeks later, his tartan scarf flutters to the ground of the high school gymnasium as he drags Serena – beautiful, worn, drunk and angry Serena – from Olivia's homecoming game. The crowd is morbidly silent, and Serena's furious ranting echoes unchallenged throughout the cavernous space. Jim's face is stoic, and he lets the heavy gym punctuate Serena's show-stopping spectacle as she follows him, struggling against his hold on her arm.

Olivia is frozen, her fingers still in a claw-like vise around the forearm of the girl who fouled her. Number fourteen, she thinks blankly. Number fourteen threw her elbow out when I tried to shoot…

Number fourteen's eyes are on Olivia's face, but gone is the competitive fury that had caused the game's scuffle; in its place are pity and confusion.

"Good thing your mom's new boyfriend knows his way around a wino," one of her teammates mutters snidely.

"Shut the hell up," she responds quickly, but her heart isn't been in it. The assistant coach is shooting glances of pity in her direction, and Olivia doesn't need a one-on-one with Coach Crockett to know she'll be sitting on the bench for the duration of the game.

She's right. Too emotional, Coach says apologetically. You're under too much stress. And Olivia nods silently and lets her features freeze into an impassive mask as she takes her place on the bench, watching everyone else desperately try to get back to normal.

This is her normal.

Hours later, she slips into the darkness of the apartment, praying for Serena to be passed out or absent so she can just disappear for a little while in her own right, in her own room. The clearing of a throat startles her.

"Good game?" Jim asks from the living room, his silhouette sharply outlined by the harsh glare of the streetlamps outside the window. One of his long, skinny legs is crossed over the other, and the comforting smells that normally emanate from him so easily seem to curl inward, stale and stiff.

"We lost," Olivia replies shortly, dropping her gym bag with a resounding thud. "Where is she?"

"Bed." His voice is bland, his posture resigned. Everything about him seems to sigh in defeat.

He's leaving, her brain whispers.

No, she tells herself. He's a good one. He'll stay.

"I was just about to leave," he says suddenly, standing up. The old couch creaks in relief.

She blinks. It's only been four weeks. Three weeks longer than anybody else Serena's brought around.

Oh.

"For good?" she asks, her voice thick.

"For awhile," he answers vaguely.

Of course, her internal monologue says snidely, because this— this is familiar.

Another one bites the dust.

The room is quiet for several seconds, and she concentrates on not crying because, honestly, it's only been four weeks.

"Does she have any friends?" he asks suddenly.

Friends. "Huh?"

"Friends? People to take care of her?"

"Oh. Um," she frowns, conducting a quick mental audit and coming up blank. "She works with some people."

"That's it? All she has are co-workers?"

"And me," she responds defensively. "I take care of her."

He smiles weakly. "You're good for her. But you're sixteen, Olivia. You should be out enjoying your life right now, not worrying about your mother."

"This is my life." The bitterness in her voice surprises her, but Jim seems nonplussed.

"Naturally. Like I said, you're good for her. That's obvious."

"Then what's the problem?" she asks petulantly.

"Lack of people," he answers, his expression thoughtful. "Everyone needs people around, and your mother…" he chuckles sadly. "Your mother needs them more than anyone. And you... well. What about you, Olivia?"

She frowned. "What about me?"

"Your friends – do you have any? I never see you with anyone your own age."

She shrugs. "They don't come here."

Jim nods like he already knows that and begins putting his coat on with a sad smile. Leaving, Olivia realizes again. Jim is done. He's leaving.

"Promise me something, Olivia, will you?"

"Depends," she retorts, valiantly ignoring the lump forming in her throat.

"Depends? Oh, right. You Benson women – stubborn. Listen, I want you to promise me you'll find people. Any people, really, as long as they're a good sort. And find people to be friends with her, for both your sakes. God only knows what will happen if you're all she has. It's—"

"Exhausting," she finishes quietly. "I know."

"Yes. I'll bet you do." With another sad smile, he cups her cheek, sighing as she flinches at the brief contact. "_Is math an sgathan suil caraide_," he says softly.

The murmured words sound like music, like warmth, like the comforting smells of his coat that she's so soon come to appreciate.

Olivia blinks. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Watch your language. It's an old Scottish saying."

"What does it mean?"

He smiles again, but there is no joy in it. "It's engraved on the cigarette case I gave your mother," he answered quietly. "You just… you need people."

And then he is gone.

*

"Olivia, a moment please?" Mr. MacDougal asks over the sound of stampeding high school students.

"Sir?"

"I spoke with my mother last night about that saying you asked me about." He picks a slip of paper out of his desk drawer and hands it to her. "Here you go."

"Thank you," she mutters, and waits until she's in the hallway to unfold it, her curious eyes skimming over the words.

_**Is math an sgathan suil caraide**__  
A friend's eye is a good looking-glass._

Three minutes later, she shoves the crumpled paper in her bag with a huff. With his cryptic gaelic proverb, Jim has somehow managed to be pushy and concerned even after his disappearing act.

Serena spends three days moping over the loss of Jim and her short-lived sobriety, alternating between mourning his absence in silence and issuing non sequitur epithets at his memory.

"Fucker," she'd snarled that morning, breaking her long moments of silence on the couch. Olivia hadn't even flinched. This is her normal.

And then there were two.

*

Just a few more moments, she tells herself. A little more silence, a little more solitude, and she'll be ready.

Ready to… what, exactly, she's not sure. She's lived in this valley of indecision with Elliot for months, now, and it's begun to feel normal. But it isn't, and if she's sure of something, it's that she doesn't want to be forced to explain workplace romances and their messy outcomes to her daughter. She has a feeling that it's either time to tame or slay this monster that they've made out of everything.

"Olivia."

Somewhere in the last ten minutes, he's dropped the question mark from her name. How Stabler-esque, she muses, to issue imperatives at a locked door.

"Liv, I'm going to say this one time. Are you listening?"

She stares at the door, and her eyebrow is cocked but he can't see it, so a pissy facial expression seems sort of pointless.

"I'll take that as a yes," he says after a moment. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this your way," he states calmly. His voice is muffled by the door, but the parental undertones aren't, and she bristles reflexively. How dare he infantilize her? "The easy way," he continues, "is you acting your age and unlocking the goddamn door so we can have an adult conversation." He stops.

Fuck you, she thinks acidly. She concentrates her mental energies on conveying this sentiment through the door.

"That's the easy way. Your way," he says after a moment, "involves me going through the cabinet under your kitchen sink, pulling out that toolbox you never use and removing the damn doorknob myself. Either way, I'm gonna look at you when I talk to you, because I'm pretty fucking tired of this passive-aggressive, silent treatment bullshit you keep dishing out."

She narrows her eyes at the doorknob. He wouldn't.

He would, and she knows it.

"Nothing to say? C'mon, Liv, you can do better than that. You're just proving my point."

Bastard.

"What's it gonna be, Liv? You wanna be a big girl and deal with this?" Silence. "Or are you just gonna have that baby in the bathtub?"

"Fuck you," she says out loud. It feels good.

"Been there, done that," he retorts caustically.

She sees red. Red. Red. Red. Red with dizzy rage. This isn't healthy.

There is a deep, searing burn in her core, churning and frothing as the acid springs from her gut and spills out of her mouth. "Yeah? Is that what you told Kathy when she asked if you were cheating?"

More silence.

Got him.

"Since when do you care?" he growls after a moment.

She huffs indignantly. "Since when do you?"

"I don't," he snaps, and she can hear his bitter laughter in his tone. "I don't care. Not one damn bit. In fact, these past few months, know what I've been doing? A whole lot of not fucking caring. You caught me."

His sarcasm eats through the door, and she expels a quick, harsh laugh to rival his. "Please. Fucking around with me doesn't mean you actually give a shit."

BANG.

She jumps, startling at the sound of what is undoubtedly him punching the door.

And then she waits.

For several long seconds, it is quiet.

It suffocates her.

Suddenly, there is noise on the other side of the door, harsh and repetitive and loud, and she frowns as she tries to decipher its source. Perhaps a car engine turning over, or a large animal being gutted…

Or Elliot having a massive coronary.

"Fuck," she hisses, swiftly yanking the door open and picturing every unhealthy thing he's ever put in his mouth. "Are you—?"

Elliot leans, his arms bracing his massive frame against the wall beside the door as The Noise is choking, clutching its way out of his throat. She cannot see his face, but the skin around his hairline is crimson. A vein near on the side of his forehead pulses frenetically. His entire body is shaking.

She stares at him, dumbfounded.

Elliot is laughing.

What the fuck?

"What the fuck?" she demands, and it sounds a lot like screeching, even to her.

Elliot, still in the throes of whatever private joke has crawled into his skull, shakes his head. "Hold on… wait… wait…" he gasps. And resumes laughing.

It is not a happy sound; she's heard similar sentiments expressed by steaming teakettles. This is Elliot whistling to avoid an explosion.

"Elliot—"

"Just… wait," he wheezes, shaking his head again. "Jesus."

She folds her arms over her belly and leans against the doorframe. She's on maternity leave and Elliot is giggling like a fucking lunatic, so she figures it's probably just best to stand and wait for the universe to give her something else that puts her completely out of her element.

"Oh," he sighs, standing up straight. "God."

"The hell's wrong with you?" she demands.

"Look," he chortles, the remnants of bitter laughter coating his words. He gestured to the space between them. "Look at this."

She frowns. "Is this funny—?"

He bites out a sharp laugh. "Oh, yeah. It's funny. It's fucking hilarious."

"What—?"

"You," he emphasizes, "are pregnant. You're pregnant with some guy's baby, some guy who pisses you off just by breathing wrong. And…" he coughs in what she suspects is an attempt to hide the re-emergence of his grossly inappropriate and hugely scary guffawing. "And you're fucking your partner."

"Fuck you," she mutters.

"Exactly," he counters, his breaths coming in short gasps. "God, I can't—dammit. Sorry," he wheezes. "Just think about it."

And… he's off. If she's lucky, maybe the laughter will cause him to pass out and she can roll him out to the hallway until this particular bout of crazy blows over.

Think about it, he said.

She sighs angrily. And thinks about it.

This time last year, she was stocking up on Ramen noodles and the occasional box of wine. Now she's painting her guest room/office/storage facility and comparison shopping for baby binkies. She's going to be a mother. A mother of a baby whose father is Kurt Moss. She's going to be in charge of another person. And Kurt, if he's worth a shit, will be there the whole time, nervously buying unwanted child-rearing accessories and giving Elliot the stink-eye.

Elliot, who at the moment looks like he could use a good dose of stink-eye, is still laughing. Except now it isn't quite as scary as it is annoying.

What the hell have they done to him? What has she done to herself? She's hitched her life to the progeny of Kurt Moss. Real fucking genius move, self, her internal monologue sniffs.

Kurt fucking Moss.

She looks at Elliot's shaking figure with wary eyes, debating the merits of saying what could only make a strange situation even more surreal.

"Elliot," she says slowly. He acknowledges her with a nod. "Elliot… Kurt dyes his hair."

This information jump-starts another round of hysterical laughter, and Elliot straightens and begins kneading his side. "Stitch…" he manages to say, leaning against the wall. His teeth are bright and sharp in the ambient light, and his face is a startling puce color but it's the youngest he's looked in years. She can feel the corners of her mouth pulling up, just a little bit. Everything feels foreign.

"Kurt gets manicures," she continues, gauging his reaction with something akin to tentative glee. "He says… he says it's important for an editor to take care of his hands."

"Stop…" he begs. Her mouth stretches further and she exhales. Weight is leaving her shoulders, slow but achingly sure. They've found a bunker in a shit-storm, and she doesn't want to leave.

"He watches the Tyra show."

Elliot emits a sound that is half-human, half-kazoo as he doubles over again. He sounds like he's choking. And then he lets out a snort—oh shit, that's not him. It's her. She's laughing without laughing, a quiet snuffling of breath without any voice behind it. Elliot catches her eye and nearly collapses.

And she laughs.

"He's getting… Kurt's getting a facelift. And his neck tightened."

"No," he gasps.

She is grinning, her jaw clenched so hard it might crack with the force of restraining the bubble of hysterical euphoria threatening to erupt from her esophagus. Elliot's eyes meet her, watery and bloodshot, and his face looks like it might split with the force of his smile… and she explodes. The unladylike cackle that bursts forth takes both of them by surprise.

He looks her in the eyes as they succumb to hysteria, leaning against opposite walls and gasping for breath, and in that moment she knows that he knows. Whatever moment they're sharing, it can't last. But she needs this. They need this.

And for a moment, everything is okay.

*

Elliot hangs up the phone as soon as she steps out of her bedroom.

"I ordered pizza," he announces. "That okay?"

"Sure," she answers. The atmosphere is markedly lighter, undoubtedly the result of the Elliot & Olivia Batshit Crazy Hour that occurred earlier. She revels in the respite. "What kind?"

"Half cheese, half everything."

"Sounds great," she says, slowly settling into the couch cushions.

He eyes her. "You okay?"

'Okay' doesn't happen just because you decided to unknot that damn necktie and jump into my bed. Or because we finally lost our shit and got the punchline to this cosmic joke of a partnership, she sighs inwardly.

But she doesn't say any of that.

"I'm hungry," she replies honestly.

He nods. "Twenty minutes – think you can make it?"

"I'll be fine. You thirsty?"

"I found your beer," he says, coming out of the kitchen with a small grin and a brown bottle. Beer. Of course she has beer. She'd bought a case of Coors three weeks prior, braving the judgmental stare of the store clerk because she suspected Elliot would be around to drink it. Her belly flutters as he opens the bottle on his forearm and she frowns. Don't even think about it, she silently tells her daughter. Not until you're thirty and old enough to know what alcohol does to your judgment and your gut.

She drains her glass of water and is pleasantly surprised when Elliot heads to the kitchen to refill it. With a sigh, she aims and fires the remote, and her television flickers to life. The face of Martin McCluskey fills the screen.

"Elliot," she calls into the kitchen.

"Yep," he replies.

"McCluskey's on the news."

He frowns as he sits beside her. "Again?"

"No, look. It's national."

"Turn it up more."

"…McCluskey claims her husband was abusive and negligent to both her and their infant daughter. Martin McCluskey, who is currently in custody for the shooting of two NYPD officers, has been charged with the rape and murder of two teenage girls. The victims' identities have been…"

"Why is this national?" she asks.

He grimaces and takes a swig from the bottle. "I don't know."

She stares at him. "And?"

His eyes find hers in the light of the television. "And what?"

"Can't you call John? He's got to know something."

"It's not my case anymore."

"What?"

He shrugs, and his expression tells her that he has no clue why she's asking questions. "Fin took over," he shrugs. "They'll handle it."

She absently wonders if she should close her mouth; her jaw's on the floor. "Elliot—"

"Cragen gave me some time off," he mutters around the beer bottle. "It's not my case."

The story between the lines is telling her what he isn't, and she sighs. "Paid or unpaid?"

He stares at the television. "Unpaid. Two weeks."

"You gonna tell me what happened?"

Elliot sighs. "Not now, Liv."

This is how Kathy felt, she'd bet her health insurance on it. "Soon?" she asks quietly.

"Yeah," he says after a moment. She watches as his shoulders visibly relax as she drops it. "We need to talk anyway, right?"

She nods. He's right, and she knows it, but the anxiety that settles over her at the prospect of ending this surreal cease-fire they're enjoying is overwhelming.

Her thoughts run on a spin cycle until the pizza arrives, and she ponders the purposes of partners and bunkers and treaties as Elliot hands her a slice of dripping, greasy heaven. They eat in silence, awash in the blue light of the television screen as the world shrinks to the four walls of her apartment.

_Is math an sgathan suil caraide,_ she thinks, and can only hope she'll like what she sees.

*

Chapter End Notes:

**Whew! And... chapter submitted. It feels good to be writing in this universe again, and it feels even better to have the amazing Mousie962 beta the shaznat out of this story. Just call her the grammar, verb tense, and characterization police!**

Your feedback is read and appreciated. Happy Friday!


	45. Ipsissima Verba

*

Her apartment has been blanketed in the fall-out of a slow-moving explosion.

Yawning, she shuffles out of her bedroom, the filmy material of her robe waving lightly against her cotton lounge pants. The waistband no longer fits comfortably around the circumference of her torso, and she's taken to letting them slouch below the bulge in her abdomen. This, combined with the inevitable riding up of her camisole, provides her more opportunities to nonchalantly scratch her belly as she treks to the kitchen each morning.

She notes her couch, with its sprawling, snoring occupant, with bleary eyes, envying Elliot's ability to sleep peacefully on his stomach. He does so now, the harsh angles of his face smoothing in sleep; he looks like a little boy with a forehead full of premature worry lines. He sleeps without a shirt, which would normally be distracting, but she's in no mood, shape or disposition to open her legs for anything less than a pelvic exam. A _medical_ pelvic exam. And anyway, he hasn't tried anything.

After gathering the paper and heating her tea, she settles into a kitchen chair and prepares to wake up. A quick inventory of the day's stories shows that the McCluskeys have been deemed newsworthy enough to be mentioned, and she skims the story with hawk-like acuity. She makes a mental note to ask Elliot about it later.

Elliot.

They have been de facto roommates for four days, and lately she's found herself debating the pros and cons of calling their boss and begging Cragen to let Elliot come back to work. Cons include Elliot being pissed, Cragen yelling at her for interfering, and – of course – Elliot _staying_ pissed.

Pros include getting Mopey, Moody, Semi-unemployed Elliot the hell out of her apartment. If she's really lucky, he'll take his dirty underwear and bottomless-pit appetite with him.

Neither one of them has come close to initiating what Olivia has come to think of as The Talk, choosing instead to awkwardly cohabitate without confrontation. She'd nearly chewed through her own tongue two nights before, when what was supposed to be a quick trip to relieve the pressure on her bladder had turned into a frantic scramble to keep her ass from falling into the toilet. She'd been sure her shriek would have woken him up.

It hadn't.

She'd almost bitched about it the next morning, but a discussion about the toilet seat would have inevitably turned into something more substantial, so.

With a sigh, she heaves herself up from the table and grabs a banana, wishing it was a slice of bacon. She walks into her living room to find that Elliot has shifted onto his back, a heavily muscled arm thrown across his eyes to block out the rays of sunlight streaming in through the windows. There are food wrappers and soda cans on her coffee table – the same ones, she notes, he'd promised to throw away the night before.

Unperturbed, Elliot sleeps, a soft snoring sound grumbling out of his open mouth. The morning light bathes the small Irish freckles on his skin, throws into harsh relief the shadows that bathe each dip and crevasse of his body. He looks relaxed, serene. Peaceful, even.

Too bad.

"Elliot!"

In an instant, his entire body jolts into motion, one arm flailing toward the coffee table as he sits up. Wrappers and soda cans scatter to the ground near her feet.

"The hell?" he snaps groggily. The muscles in his back bunch and gather as he scrubs his jaw with his hands.

"I told you to clean this shit up last night," she replies shortly. "Now get up. You're taking me to my appointment."

*

Dr. Patel has won the Nobel Peace Prize and the New York State Lottery, Olivia determines. She can think of no other explanation for his obnoxious good mood.

"Good morning, Detective Olivia," he sings as he steps into the exam room. His accent makes his cheeriness even more noticeable, and she grimaces at the volume of his voice.

"Just Olivia," she says for the hundredth time. "You remember Elliot."

"Of course, Detective Not-the-father! It has been awhile, eh? Look at how big and beautiful your partner is getting."

Elliot responds with a nod and a tight smile. Patel is nonplussed.

"Okay, Just Olivia, we are thirty-five weeks now! How is mommy feeling?"

Patel does that, he refers to Olivia as 'mommy' and part of her is annoyed at this affectation and at her reaction to it – she always wants to look around the room for someone else that he could be referring to. Part of her, though… part of her really, really likes it.

"Tired," she answers. "Stressed. Fat."

Elliot snorts dismissively, probably still recovering from his wake-up call. She resists the urge to knee him in the jaw.

"Fat?" Patel exclaims. "Women. I wish you _were_ fat, because as it is, Olivia, you are needing to gain weight."

She can feel her eyebrows ascending to her hairline. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing too serious, you are still healthy, but I want you to make sure you are eating enough." He tapped her chart. "You have gained twenty-four pounds."

"And that's not enough?"

"It is not bad," he says soothingly. "But I want more rather than less, if you are to fluctuate from the average."

Defeated, she lets her head fall back against the table. "How much more?"

"Just three to five pounds. You should be gaining about a pound a week."

"Is that necessary?" Elliot asks.

Her eyes shoot to the man in the chair beside her. His arms are folded over his old USMC t-shirt, a wardrobe choice that is currently at odds with his facial expression; he looks like he's in the middle of an interrogation.

Dr. Patel frowns. "Excuse me?"

"My ex-wife and I had five kids," Elliot responds. "Her doctor said a little bit of fluctuation from the average was fine."

"It usually is," he shrugs. "But in Olivia's case, I want to make sure everything is being taken care of. I prefer her to stay as close to this number as possible."

Elliot's brow furrows even deeper. "So what's she supposed to do? Hit up a Krispy Kreme?"

"Of course not," the doctor replies, exasperated. "Perhaps bigger portion sizes of what you are already having, Olivia. Have you been eating enough meat?"

She nods. She's turned into a fucking carnivore in order to increase her iron intake.

"Good. And continue taking your supplements." He nods decisively and sets the chart down. "Now then. Shall Detective Not-the-father remain for your examination? Or can I exile him to the waiting room?"

Elliot bristles. Patel smirks. Olivia sighs.

"He can stay," she answers resignedly, because she's learning that Elliot's a hell of a lot harder to get rid of than she would have supposed.

*

The air is brisk and busy, and the November bite of the air makes Olivia snuggle further into her coat in an attempt to cover her nose with her scarf. Another gust of wind blows through them and she eyes Elliot's jacket and knit cap with dismay.

"You're gonna get sick," she announces. He grins wolfishly at her, the whiteness of his teeth exaggerated by the cold red of his nose and cheeks.

"Guess you'll have to nurse me back to health, then," he quips. "You know, if you've got time for me between meals."

"I don't think you'll get the proper level of medical attention from me if you're staying in the crib," she retorts.

"Right. Hey, speaking of meals – what did you eat this morning?"

"Huh? Oh. Um," she frowns in concentration. "Some tea and a banana. No salsa," she adds quickly.

"That's all?"

"I'm not a big breakfast person."

"Yeah, I know. But… c'mon, Liv. You gotta eat more than that."

"I'll eat something big at lunch."

"Like what?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. Turkey sandwich." She glances his way to find him staring at her. "What?"

"A turkey sandwich? That's big?"

"I'll make it a club," she replies sarcastically. "Don't worry, Elliot. I eat."

"Yeah, yeah." He takes her arm. "C'mon."

*

Big Daddy's Diner is packed, but Elliot seems to have no trouble making his way through the crowd. She suspects it has a little to do with his height and build and a lot to do with her condition.

The booth tables aren't bolted to the floor, and she breathes a mental sigh of relief when Elliot pulls it close enough to his side for her to fit onto the vinyl bench seat.

Their waitress is young enough to attract attention and old enough to know better, with flat-ironed blond hair and a nametag that says 'Jordan.' She greets both of them but grins at Elliot. "Welcome to Big Daddy's. What can I get you?"

Elliot's eyes skim the menu briefly. "Yeah, we'll have tater tots to start. Then we'd like the Rappers' Delight with a side salad, vinaigrette dressing on the side, and I'll have a Jackie Brown with fries. And two slices of the Whopper cake."

Her mouth is open and she looks like an idiot. Close your mouth, Olivia, she tells herself. Close it now.

Jordan nods, oblivious. "And to drink?"

"Oh, uh, coffee," he answers, gesturing to himself and then pointing to Olivia. "And hot tea. And two waters."

"Great. I'll get that right out," she says cutely. So cute, Olivia thinks with a mixture of envy and cynicism. So fucking cute.

Elliot's eyes scan the restaurant before landing on her. He looks surprised to find her staring. "What?"

"You just ordered for me. And our waitress wants your number."

He huffs a laugh. "Her number's a little too low for me. And you've been on that wrap kick lately, anyway."

"And my salad?"

He shrugs. "We've been partners for nine years. I know how you eat."

Good segue, her brain suggests helpfully. This is it. "Is that what we are?" she asks quietly.

Jordan picks this moment to deposit two mugs and two glasses of ice water in front of them. "Your tater tots will be right out," she announces cheerfully.

"Great, thanks," Elliot replies.

Olivia focuses on opening her tea packet, waiting for him to acknowledge her question. She hadn't imagined this conversation taking place in public, but this is probably better. The statistical probability of them yelling or fucking around is significantly lower in Big Daddy's Diner.

"You want to do this here?" he asks quietly.

She nods.

"Well, to answer your question, I don't know. You were the one who didn't want to label this."

This again. "Yeah, well, look where that got us."

He leans back in his seat and sighs. "What do you want, Olivia?"

And here it is. "I don't know," she answers plainly. "I guess that depends a lot on you. What do _you_ want?"

He gazes evenly at her for several seconds, and she fights the urge to squirm beneath the weight of his scrutiny. Jordan bounces to their table with their tater tots, notes their staring contest, and leaves, noticeably less energetic.

"How many times are we gonna do this?" he says, finally. "I ask you what you want, you pull this answer-with-another-question crap. I asked you first."

"_That's_ how we're doing this? 'I asked you first?' Give me a break."

He shrugs. "I asked first. You answer first." His tone leaves no room for argument

She glares at him and sighs, looking away. With her peripheral vision, she watches him slowly begin to eat their appetizer.

What does she want?

She wants a healthy baby, she knows that much. A healthy, beautiful baby that will exceed everything Olivia's ever accomplished or achieved. She wants to be a good mom, and in doing so, surpass her mother's own legacy. Destroy it, even.

She wants to be good at her job. She wants a good retirement plan. She wants to not be hoofing it as a seventy-year-old sex crimes detective.

She wants her body back after the baby's born.

She wants Elliot around. She's not sure how yet, but ideally it would involve him living close by, helping with the baby. The occasional bedroom olympics. Or maybe occasional should be bi-weekly… or daily…

She wants to address the long list of problems that continuously plague their interaction with one another. She wants to know that she can make something work without worrying about it exploding in her face or just abandoning her.

She wants everything they've ever had that's worked to stick around. She wants all of the shit they've carried between them to evaporate into thin air.

She wants Elliot to want the exact same thing, or maybe more. But she doesn't know how to say all of this, and baring her soul has never been more uncomfortable, but he _did_ ask first…

"I want you around," she blurts.

His eyebrows climb. "Around?" he repeats.

She nods.

"That's a pretty broad statement," he muses, squeezing a puddle of ketchup beside the tater tots. "You might need to get more specific."

Fuck. "Fine. Later. Your turn."

"My turn?"

"You answer my question: what do you want?"

He doesn't speak right away, opting instead to shove a ketchup-smothered tater tot into his mouth and washing it down with a swig of coffee. She imagines the taste and grimaces.

"I want to figure this out," he says finally, gesturing to the space between them. "I want to make sure we do everything right."

She frowns. "What does that mean?"

"Nice try," he says with a smirk. "Your turn. Be specific."

Oh. Specificity. Okay. She can do this. She straightens.

"I want you around…" she begins slowly. "I want you to be a part of the baby's life. And my life." She inhales. "But not just because of work," she adds quickly.

There.

"How so?" he asks. She shakes her head. "Oh. Right." He scrubs his jaw thoughtfully. "Well… I guess I just—I don't know. I just don't…"

She is frozen in her seat, silently urging him to continue.

"I don't want you to be the woman I leave Kathy for," he says after a moment.

Kaboom.

She lets out a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. "Oh."

He must see something in her face, because he holds up his hand. "Wait, that didn't sound right. I just mean that… God, Liv. My kids know you already, but this. This is gonna be hard for them to deal with, especially if it happens now."

'This.' 'It.'

"If _what_ happens now?" she asks evenly.

His jaw tightens as he rolls his eyes. "Are you really going to play this game?" he asks acidly. "You want me to say it?"

She shrugs.

"Dating, Olivia," he says flatly. "I'm saying that I want to date you." He pauses. "Just not… not right now."

Close your mouth, Olivia, she tells herself again. Just keep it shut until you have something smart to say.

Nothing's coming to mind.

Her mouth ignores her brain and works in vain, opening and closing soundlessly.

Open.

Close.

Open.

Close.

Open—

"The hell's wrong with your mouth?" Elliot asks around a tater tot.

Nine years swirls around her brain in a vivid maelstrom of memories, of moments that hold no real significance other than having him in them. She sees stake-outs and warnings and shoot-outs and scars and line-ups and victims and faces of Elliot in her mind, of the young, happily married cop she'd first met, of the jaded, tired almost-divorced-twice dad that sits in front of her. The two images flash again and again in a seemingly endless juxtaposition, and she shakes her head quickly to help her stay in the moment.

"Nothing," she answers steadily. "Um. I'm just surprised."

He rolls his eyes again. "Yeah, well. We suck at this."

"Here you go, guys," Jordan announces. Her voice is marginally less chipper. "One Rapper's Delight with a salad, and a Jackie Brown with fries. And here's your cake. Anything else?"

"No thanks," they say at the same time.

The food provides an excellent excuse to not say anything immediately. She chews her wrap – it really is delicious, she admits silently – and mulls.

Elliot wants to date her.

Elliot wants to be her boyfriend.

Elliot _likes_ her. Like _that_. And he's a pushy pain in her ass, but she strongly suspects she likes him back.

Do not smile for no reason, she instructs her mouth. You're a grown-ass woman. You've done this before.

Except she really, really hasn't.

Not right now, he'd said. Okay. "When?"

He looks startled, possibly because of the silence that had been ensuing since his awkward admission. "Huh?"

"You said not right now," she says slowly. "So when?"

He stares at her blankly. "Did you—do you want to?"

"Do I want—what you said?" She is officially twelve years old. He nods. "I mean—it's not like we haven't… you know…" she shakes herself mentally, agitation and nerves crushing her caution. "Jesus, Elliot. Yes, fine. I'll date you."

They remain motionless for several seconds. The people around them continue living their lives as if the earth hasn't just shifted several degrees to the right. Ambient chatter and the clinking of forks on flatware fill the air between them.

And then, ever so slowly, Elliot takes another bite of his sandwich. He chews thoughtfully. A cow with its cud. She cannot look away.

Another bite. Chew. Swallow.

And another.

She can't take it anymore.

"What are you thinking?" she demands sharply.

Chew. Swallow.

"I'm thinking," he says after a moment, "that I like knowing we're on the same page."

Brown meets blue and neither one blinks for what seems like an hour.

Elliot breaks first. "Eat your lunch, Liv," he says around the fries in his mouth. "You've got weight to gain."

*


	46. Inter Se

Author's Chapter Notes:

***sigh*******

you all are wonderful -- have I told you that? it's true. i've needed time to slink away from life for a little while, and i've truly appreciated that you all have graciously given it to me.

for those of you who've been reading from the beginning, many dankes your way... new readers, you're coming in on the tail-end of a labor of love that I hope you'll enjoy.

Many thanks and cyber-dollars to Mousie, for immeasurably improving this stuff with her sharp eyes and good advice.

_**"Between Themselves"**_

There is sanity in repetition, and beauty in the darkness. She's floating in something new now, something unknown and menacing in its unfamiliarity, and sometimes it's all she can do to place her palm against the giant bulge of her belly, the fluttering within serving as her very own personal grounding rod.

Metaphorical floating is all she can manage these days; there really is something to be said for pregnancy cravings and medically mandated weight gain. Combined, they alleviate the guilt she knows she'll feel after demolishing one of the victims of her latest culinary preferences: cheeseburgers.

It is a sunny Saturday at home, her third since leaving work, and she unwraps a pre-packaged burger patty and ignores the twinge of guilt that pricks her for ignoring the organic meat Casey had dropped off earlier as a gift. Fancy-free, non-pregnant, partner-less Casey, who effortlessly tramps down to the Whole Foods in SoHo while wearing four-inch heels, just to avoid a couple extra doses of animal hormones. She'd shown up on Olivia's doorstep, glowing with the effervescence of generosity and slightly out of breath from those ridiculous, ridiculous shoes.

"I got you some meat," she'd proclaimed proudly as Olivia opened the door. "And some honey crystals."

Olivia had blinked. Stared. Blinked again. "Some what?"

"Honey crystals. You use it in place of sugar. It's better for you."

Olivia had stared at her. "You brought me meat."

"And honey crystals," she repeated, cocking an eyebrow. "Are you going to let me in?"

"What's wrong with the meat I buy?"

Casey had pushed past her to get through the doorway, launching into a tirade on genetically modified food and the hormone levels of chickens as Olivia had warily put away enough organic meat to feed a commune of a health-conscious cavemen.

"That's great, Casey, but I buy organic meat already."

"Yeah? From where?"

"West Side."

"This is better."

"Why?"

"Because Whole Foods is just better."

More expensive, Casey, Olivia had wanted to say. That doesn't make it better and we can't all be attorneys. Her own B.A. from Siena College has taken her far enough in life to pull from the small organic section at West Side, and Casey's implied criticism of her budgetary choices had briefly rankled within. Champagne taste, beer pocketbook, she'd wanted to say with a shrug. Too bad she's had none of either in the last several months -- otherwise, Casey's oblivious Rich Girl commentary wouldn't bother her so much.

But Casey's nowhere to be found today, so Olivia flips an extremely non-organic burger patty in the skillet and wonders if her erstwhile friend will ever find time to just chill the fuck out about organic meat and life in general.

Easy for Olivia to say, what with the metaphorical floating and all. She's enjoyed her out-of-body experience, the bliss of -- so far -- successfully navigating the stresses and difficulties of pregnancy and awkward emotional entanglements with ease. Two nights ago she'd even laughed at one of Elliot's stupid baseball jokes -- laughed and meant it. He'd stared at her for entirely too long afterwards before grinning back and swilling his beer.

Glorious, off-limits beer.

With a resounding bang -- he knows she hates it when he slams the door -- Elliot announces his arrival, and she fights the internal urge to take back his key. He's way too comfortable here.

"Liv," he hollers. Unnecessarily. "You here?"

"Kitchen," she calls.

"Cheeseburgers again?" he greets, heading straight for the beer in her fridge.

"Nothing else sounds good. Hand me that cheese." He tosses something on the counter and she rolls her eyes. "The sliced cheese."

The offending shredded blend is removed and replaced with a Kraft single. She works at unwrapping it as Elliot leans his hip against her kitchen counter, taking a large bite of one of her Fuji apples and chewing thoughtfully before washing it down with his beer. Gross, she thinks.

"Looked at some places this morning," he announces blandly.

"Any luck?" Damn it, who was responsible for the packaging of American cheese now? The seam of the wrapper is blended impeccably into the rest of the plastic, if she can just--

"Little bit. Got plans for Friday afternoon?" he asks.

If she didn't know better, she'd think his voice sounded a little too nonchalant. She frowns. "Why?"

Elliot grins briefly and tears into the apple again. "Well," he says around his food, and she really wishes he wouldn't do that. He knows she hates it, knows she thinks it's obnoxious. Swallow your damn food, she's told him at least four times in the last week. She scowls at his mouth before realizing he's still talking. "… and we could go out after."

Burger's done. She finally gets the cheese out of the wrapper and throws it on the patty to let it melt a little bit. "Out? For what?"

"Coffee."

"I have coffee here, if you want it. And I drink tea now."

He rolls his eyes, his annoyance palpable. "We could also go get coffee or tea at a coffee or tea place. On a date."

Shit. Metaphorical-Floating Phase officially ends, commence with Plan Freeze-And-Maybe-He-Won't-Push-the-Issue.

It's been six days since their junior high confessional at the diner, and Olivia has enjoyed the sense of clarity she'd gotten regarding their relationship. Elliot likes me, she's found herself thinking at random points throughout her day. Elliot likes me.

Like that.

Despite his door-slamming, chew-talking and emotional baggage, she's pretty sure she likes him, too, to put it simply; but adolescent terms of endearment aside, she's not naïve enough to suppose that anything will be easy, or even possible. Elliot's still married and still, for all intents and purposes, her partner. She's thankful he's admitted to feeling something more than friendship -- it would be really hard to justify pregnantly fucking him against a locker under a 'friends with benefits' clause -- but she's not counting on it as a guarantee of a future with the man. Nor does she want to start holding hands and exchanging love notes.

What she wants is not the issue. What is plausible, what is probable -- she's working with that.

And besides, dates-- well, the thought of going on a date with Elliot is just… weird.

His expression falters and tenses. "What the hell's that supposed mean?" he demands testily.

Shit. She's been thinking aloud again.

She slowly slathers the underside of her hamburger bun in Miracle Whip to buy time. "Dating is just… you don't think it feels weird? With me?"

"Weird."

"Yeah. Like you're dating your step-sister or something."

He recoils like she's struck him. "What?"

Damn it. That came out wrong. "Stop. That's not what I meant. I just meant, you know, it feels…" she huffs in frustration. "You're Elliot."

He stares at her with a look that yells, 'You are a moron.' "Yes," he says slowly. "And you're Olivia. And that's mustard. And that," he points to her cheeseburger with his beer, "is a heart attack."

She rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean."

"We talked about this. We agreed," he states pointedly. "You reneging?"

"You said not right now," she shoots back, slamming her skillet into the sink. "Are you?"

Some dogs just won't learn new tricks, because whether they're in the middle of the squad room or her kitchen, whether it's an issue of suspect alibis or date nights, she and Elliot are seemingly incapable of just discussing something without hunching over to protect their weak spots from each other.

They stare at each other for several seconds before she realizes how un-intimidating she must look, clad in maternity pajamas as she clutches to her cheeseburger like it's a lifeline. She really misses being able to scare people.

After several seconds of staring at her with narrowed eyes, Elliot's face perceptibly relaxes.

"Look," he sighs. "I'm going to look at some places on Friday, I want you to come with me and we can get coffee after." He shrugs. "We get coffee all the time. Well, tea. No date, no pressure. Your call."

She nods slowly as his words register. "I'll think about it," she says after a pause.

He bites the apple again. "'Kay."

"But it's not a date."

"Not a date."

Silence returns as Elliot's apple surrenders another chunk. He chews slowly.

She takes the opportunity to tear into the mouthwatering piece of heaven ensconced between her fingers, fighting back a moan at the first bite. It's beautiful.

"You know, just out of curiosity," he blurts. She almost chokes. "What's with the second thoughts?"

He's waiting for an answer, but she chews. Swallows. Sets the example, showing him that it is possible to say important things without food in one's mouth. "Second thoughts?"

"You don't want to go out. Explain that to me."

She's never going to enjoy her burger if he doesn't shut the hell up. "Elliot, you're still married."

He flinches. "I'm aware."

She's poking at a sore spot, but they're talking and he's here and she might as well go for broke because she's quickly learned that his marriage is something Elliot does Not Like to talk about. She treads forward with caution. "So I figured you'd want some time. I know I do. Have you even talked to Kathy?"

He glares at her. "Yeah."

"When?"

"What do you mean, when? She's the mother of my kids, I talk to her every day," he snaps.

"Oh." That's news to her. "That's good." She takes another bite of her burger, chewing slowly, gathering her thoughts and giving Elliot the chance to cage his pissy bitch temper. "How is she?"

Tension is rolling off of Elliot in waves. "She's great," he says sarcastically. "Being alone with the kids really seems to agree with her."

Aaaaand, Pissy Bitch is here to stay.

Nothing seems like a good idea, so that's what she says as Elliot discards his apple and beer bottle into the trash and leans back against the counter, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at her.

Olivia observes a moment of silence for the death of almost everything Elliot has held dear and hopes to whoever is listening that he'll give her something here, because they're at a point where one mistake, one secret, one wrong move in a fight can demolish everything between them. She's acutely aware of that now and hopes he is, too.

"She keeps asking me to explain myself to our priest," he mutters after almost a full minute.

She frowns. "Explain what?"

"The situation," he clarifies, not looking at her. "Why I moved out. Why I haven't been to Mass or confession. Why I'm shacking up with my pregnant partner."

"We're not--"

"Yeah, I know. But Kathy doesn't."

"Did you tell her we weren't--"

"She doesn't believe me."

"Oh." Of course. Even Olivia can see that what they're doing looks several shades of illicit. She hasn't stopped to examine how she feels about Kathy's disposition towards her, especially given their point-blank discussion about Elliot several months prior.

"She said the kids are upset," he says quietly.

"At you?"

"At all of us."

"You and Kathy?"

He lifts his head, steadily meeting her gaze with steel and stone. "And you."

*

Two steps forward, ten steps back.

She wishes she could lie back and stare at the ceiling, but Baby Girl's weight on her spine makes the position uncomfortable. She lies on her side and stares at the wall, instead.

Choices have consequences. Every decision sets off a chain of reactions that reverberate in ways both big and small and ultimately change the course of one's life. She knows this. She's known this.

Collateral damage. Body count. Civilian casualties.

Elliot's on the couch watching the game, a time-honored ploy to give them both some space after the reality of his family situation came crashing into her world two hours earlier. The faces of his kids are on a constant rotation in her mind; she now knows what Elliot means when he says, 'All of them' when she asks which kid he's thinking about.

All of them.

Five of them.

Collateral damage.

Serena had never seemed to have any qualms of the effect her motherhood had on Olivia, extending to her daughter the same courtesy one would show to an unwelcome guest that shows no signs of leaving. Put up or shut up, she'd said time and time again. Nobody wants to hear you whine, Libby.

So Olivia put up and shut up.

Elliot, on the other hand, seems to live in a perpetual state of low-level anguish when it comes to his children's disdain. She's seen what fatherhood has meant to him, witnessed it firsthand. He's fucked up and flawed, but his kids…

Those kids are everything.

Serena had dated a man named Roger for almost three weeks, eventually breaking it off upon discovering he had a son.

"I'm not playing second fiddle to that guy's kid," she'd exclaimed to Olivia one morning, shoveling burnt eggs and desiccated bacon onto her daughter's plate. "I told him that, too. I said, 'Given the choice between your wife and your kid, who do you choose?' You know what he says? 'My kid.' Just like that. Simple. I said, 'Listen, honey, I've got a kid, too, but you don't see me making the choice.' He's got needs that son can't handle, I'll tell you that much. It's too bad." With a dramatic sigh, she'd flopped into her chair across the table, assembling the necessary ingredients for her morning screwdriver. "Eat your eggs, Libby."

Serena played second fiddle to nobody, and Olivia had quickly learned that being her daughter had not made her exempt from the overwhelming self-absorption that pervaded her mother's mind. Alcoholic or no, the emotional nourishment of Olivia had never been much of a priority for anyone, much less the beautiful, brazen, boozy Serena Benson.

Can Olivia play second--no, sixth fiddle to Elliot's family? Can she even ask for a chance to do so?

With a shudder, the angry expression she's seen before on Kathleen's face comes to mind, this time solely directed at her.

"You slut!" she can almost hear Elliot's daughter scream. "You're fucking my dad!"

If there's one thing she knows about the Stablers, it's that they tend to see things in black and white. She's not sure, but it's improbable that she'd ever be granted a chance to explain herself. Elliot's kids don't give a collective rat's ass about her shitty childhood -- they're too consumed by their own.

*

The afternoon shadows are lengthy and leaning when she finally gets out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom. The game is still on, blaring loudly from the living room, but she walks in to find Elliot asleep with his head tilted back at an uncomfortable angle, snoring on her sofa with a beer in his hand. His socks look disgusting.

This is what she's fighting for, she muses darkly. Way to woo a girl, Stabler.

"Elliot, wake up."

His head shoots up. "What's wrong?"

"Relax," she sighs, sinking into the spot beside him. "I just want to talk."

"About what?"

"What else do we talk about?" she groans. "Or not talk about. Anyway, I just… we need to get some things straight." He nods, his expression wary, so she continues. "Your kids-- they hate me."

"They don't--"

"They hate me. I'd hate me if I were them, hell, I hate me a little bit anyways."

He smirks, but there's no humor in it. "So they hate you," he concedes, taking a swig of warm beer.

"And they're not too happy with you." He frowns. "So what do we do?"

"'What do we do?'" he repeats incredulously. "What, you want to, like, make it up to them?"

"Yeah," she blurts sarcastically. "I'm really looking forward to trying to earn their respect after--" her uncertainty strangles the rest of her words. "You know," she finishes, suddenly awkward. "This."

His sigh is heavy, and he stares at the game on the television before his face twists suddenly. She wonders what he's thinking about.

"El?"

Elliot's eyes have not left the game, and his voice sounds hollow. "What exactly do you think you've done?"

"What--?"

"To make my kids hate you," he clarifies. "What did you do?"

She blinks. "I… slept with their dad. Their married dad."

"You didn't start it."

"You know it's not that simple. They're really not going to want a rundown of who did what."

"It's about responsibility," he continues as if he didn't hear her. "My family is my responsibility. I did this."

His words sink in before she replies carefully, "I helped. You didn't fuck yourself." Elliot flinches, ever the conscientious Catholic, albeit about the strangest things, and she scowls. "You know what I mean. And I didn't bring this up so you could play the blame game."

"Someone's got to deal with the fall-out," he insists.

"We all do. We're all in this now, regardless of what happens with… us."

"You reneging again?"

"No."

"Hm," he mutters around his beer bottle. The brown glass is beginning to seem more like a security blanket, and she sighs.

"We're… we're both willing to move towards something," she says, hoping her discomfort isn't glaringly obvious. "But before anything happens, I just--I have to know if this is worth it to you."

His head swivels, and he looks at her then, hard. "This? You mean if you're worth it. To me."

Olivia meets his gaze, praying for the willpower to hold it. He's so close, and they're moving farther and farther into something dark, visceral -- into the heart of everything that they've been wallowing in. She's fascinated by the atmospheric change in the room when they talk like this, when they speak in truths with mirrors. Dusk is settling in the city and the blue light of the television illuminates them both, washing over the living room as the apartment makes the slow transition into nightfall.

Dusk covers the valley, stars slowly come into sight…

This is what she's fighting for.

Elliot's still staring at her, but she's still meeting him blink for blink, waiting. Wondering.

Is it worth it?

"I'm in this," he mutters hoarsely. "I've always been in."

But is it worth it? she wants to know. She lives her life at the end of a long trail of regrets; she desperately wants Elliot to not be one of them.

"Is it--?" she begins to ask quietly.

"It's worth it," he says plainly.

She releases a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. "It's worth it," she repeats.

Elliot sets his bottle down and rests his elbows on his knees, scrubbing his face with his hands. "Yeah."

"So." He looks at her questioningly. "So… you're in?"

"Jesus, Liv. I already said I was in."

"And this is worth it."

He nods. "It is."

"How do you know?"

With a sigh, he leans back and into her, and the stone and steel of earlier has melted into the blue of a stormy sea. They sit, staring, for several seconds as his breath, familiar and beer-y, warms her cheek. He blinks first, right before his lips feather gently across hers.

She hasn't realized how much she's missed him in this way, didn't think it was possible to miss him as a lover when she'd gone so long as his friend. She moans quietly against his mouth as his tongue touches her bottom lip, seeking entrance and permission.

She grants both.

After an indeterminate number of minutes passes, Elliot pulls away, using a rough palm to smooth her hair from crown to neck. His breathing, she is pleased to notice, is labored.

"It's worth it," he repeats quietly. "It's gotta be."

*

Little changes. Half steps. Butterfly wings beating halfway round the world.

He brings her a cheeseburger from Big Nick's on 71st and grins as she obliterates it.

She does his laundry.

He absently pulls her swollen feet into his lap one night while looking over a file from work, kneading the fingers on his left hand into her aching arches as she pesters him for details on the case.

She wordlessly gives him a dresser drawer and a modicum of closet space.

He loses his temper, throwing his phone across the room and punching her fridge after a particularly disastrous conversation with Dickie -- who has begun insisting on the less diminutive 'Rich.'

She tells him to leave, throwing him to the mercy of the crib until he calms down.

He assembles nursery furniture and completes various projects around her apartment, free of charge.

She reaches for his hand at a crosswalk.

He bends over her sleeping form in the mornings to brush a brief kiss on her forehead before leaving for work.

She wakes up to a post-it note containing a dirty limerick; her grin doesn't fade until she realizes he hasn't put away his makeshift coach bed.

He yells sometimes.

She always yells back.

Her neighbors hate them.

It's the happiest she's ever been.

*


	47. Vulpem pilum mutat, non mores

**Major dankes to Mousie, of course.**

**And to all of you who've read and reviewed. Reviews make my day – the more specific you are, the better! I like writing what you like to read.**

**Enjoy…**

_**A fox may change its hair, not its tricks. **_

*

Hudson University is comprised of various large, stately-looking brick and slate buildings in the Morningside Heights neighborhood; it simultaneously radiates youth and tradition. Olivia, pushing forty years and single motherhood, feels grossly out of place as she waddles around the center of the campus.

She wasn't always so awkward here. She remembers looking at the campus with adolescent eyes, how the autumn colors along the College Walk represented whatever she wanted—a future, an independence she'd longed for. Olivia remembers strolling on cobblestoned walkways after school and wondering what Serena would do with herself when her only daughter went away to college. She'd found out soon enough.

It was a sunny April Thursday when Olivia had come home from school to find her mother at the kitchen table, anger and hurt seething out of every pore. The large tumbler in front of her looked ridiculous in her elegant fingers, those fingers that were made to caress stemware on crystal; they clutched to the bulky glass like it was a lifeline. Olivia could smell the sharp twang of what could have been rubbing alcohol, but was more likely vodka; Serena had taken to drinking it several years earlier, claiming it didn't leave a scent like whiskey.

The allegedly scent-less liquid had stung Olivia's nose as she'd dropped her backpack on the floor and made her way to the fridge to pour her own less intoxicating libation. Thirty seconds later, her glass of milk almost slipped from her grasp; there, on the table in front of Serena, was a piece of paper bearing the Siena College letterhead.

Serena's bleary eyes had followed Olivia's gaze; her face settled into a bitter smirk.

"You know how I feel about secrets, Libby."

Olivia, all of seventeen years old and full of her ability to control her own fate, swallowed back a less-than-conciliatory retort. "I was going to tell you."

Serena laughed, the timbres and tones like brittle glass, like broken teeth. "When?" she demanded, simultaneously giggling and scowling.

The milk sat forgotten on the counter behind Olivia; her hands clenched the edges of the countertop and she hoped she could break a bone. "I was going to—"

"When the ifuck/i were you going to tell me, Olivia? iSiena/i? It's past fucking Albany!"

"It's only three hours away, Ma," she'd stated quietly.

Serena had said nothing. Her hand, as it conveyed the ridiculously large tumbler to her lips, was shaking.

Outside the window, Olivia had been able to see a bird perched neatly on the fire escape, its perky, chipper demeanor serving to highlight the tension on the other side of the window. The bird chirped, inserting a spring sound into the quiet noise of traffic and people on the street.

The kitchen was deathly silent, save for the smacking of Serena's lips after each drink; the sound always made Olivia grimace. It meant her mother was getting sloppy.

"You're not going."

Olivia had turned away from the window to find herself the target of Serena's gaze, unblinking and unfocused. She'd sighed. "I'm going. If they accept me, I'm going."

"You're not going anywhere. You'll stay here with—you need to stay here in the city."

"Why?" Olivia demanded. "To stay with you?"

Serena had looked away then, down at her glass. "You need to stay," she muttered, her voice stiff with petulance and pride. Her demeanor had reminded Olivia of a surly child.

Fights with Serena had been like that later on, after things had gotten heated during Olivia's sophomore year and their altercation ended with Serena in the hospital. It had been an accident, an error in judgment on Olivia's part and she'd apologized, over and over. But it didn't matter; Serena had never completely forgiven her and what's more, she'd never been the same. The towering monster that had occasionally bullied those around it had transformed into a thwarted, ill-tempered bully. Serena had been weak – had always been weak, and apparently, it had taken kicking her into a wall for Olivia realize it.

She'd never been weaker than that particular Thursday, and it had showed in her posture, in the lines of her face, in the way she'd sulked and threatened and eventually cowered behind her glass before Olivia had quietly taken Siena's letter of acceptance to her room.

Even as a teenager, she'd understood that Serena's resistance to Siena College had nothing to do with the institution of higher education; Serena had loved her education and her work at Hudson University, had lived and breathed her work as long as it didn't take her too far from the bottle. The school's campus was the only place in the city she could breathe, she'd told her daughter once.

Serena doesn't breathe anywhere anymore, and Olivia tries to focus on her own fondness for Hudson's campus as she takes a small path off the walk into a small area consisting of two park benches and splashes of color. It's only February and there are no flowers, but the grounds crew has placed several dozen bright colored bows on the barely budding stems of one of the plants. It doesn't produce the ideal effect, but it works. She recalls how, in the spring and summer months, the rust of the brick buildings will provide a border for gravel paths and greenery, the foliage contributing to the large courtyard's Eden-esque appearance – life and color thriving in the midst of a concrete jungle. It's just what she needs: another reminder that beauty and vitality can thrive in the most unexpected places.

Students look at her curiously – she is clearly not one of them and is too casually dressed to be faculty. She ignores the brief, questioning glances, spending a few minutes of her empty afternoon on a park bench— fingers lightly tracing the wrought iron armrest and eyes hungrily absorbing the glimpses of green visible from her place in the garden.

Ribbon flowers springing forth from concrete – it's a metaphor that even her mother could appreciate.

*

She's awash in sea of fucking hormones.

As if anything could make her feel less attractive, her breasts have been leaking with alarming frequency. She knows its normal, that she's producing colostrum as a prelude to nursing, but she's had her breasts for forty years and they've never done… that. So it's weird.

The ducts in her breasts aren't the only victims of the hormonal takeover; she's starting crying frequently, with little provocation, each time wondering if she'll ever stop having the urge to growl in frustration when her tear ducts engage. She hates crying and besides, she suspects her tears will have less pull with Elliot in the future if she indulges in the constant waterworks her body seems to desire.

For his part, Elliot has been at work, asleep, or walking on eggshells. He rubs circles on her back a lot, providing bemused smirks and vague affirmations during her hormonal surges.

"It'll get better, Liv," he offers one morning, absently stroking between her shoulder blades. "You're gonna be okay."

"Damn it, Elliot—you're rubbing a hole in my skin. Move lower." He does so with nary a complaint, and her eyes watered anew; whipped, sweet Elliot was a guaranteed dignity-killer. For both of them.

Another dignity-killer: false labor.

She's tried to be an educated mother-to-be – really, she has – and Dr. Patel's explained to her all the symptoms of going into real labor. That doesn't stop her from panicking one night as contractions periodically rack her abdomen.

Fuck, fuck, fuck she thinks frantically, trying to stuff her feet into her shoes without being able to see them. She's turned all the lights on and is making a prodigious amount of noise—why hasn't Elliot woken up?

The man in question is snoring loudly on the couch, dead to the world. Normally, she'd be satisfied that he's getting a good night's rest.

But inow/i is not the time for forty fucking winks.

"Elliot," she hisses, fingers clutching the strap of her overnight bag. "Wake up!"

"Mmph."

"I'm…shit… I'm having contractions—the baby…"

Elliot had shot up before she'd finished the word 'having.'

Three hours, two car trips and one world-weary nurse's explanation of "false labor" later, he collapses back into the same spot, waving off Olivia's apologetic looks with a yawn.

*

Her dreams have taken another bizarre, albeit probably non-gas-related, turn— her subconscious is choosing to keep her company by providing awkward facsimiles of… herself. This time, her childhood Christmas Olivia is just one small act of the fucked up shit-show that happens while she sleeps.

"Get down!" she yells at herself one night. She is Cop Olivia with her flat stomach and blessedly independent bladder, a gun clutched surely in her hands as she aims at something, something, something behind… herself. Her fat, pregnant self.

Fat, pregnant Olivia waddles uncertainly out of range as Cop Olivia holds her stance. "Police!" she calls. "Keep your hands where I can see them!"

A vague silhouette begins to emerge from the inky shadows, stalking slowly toward them. She can hear two pairs of footsteps.

"Don't shoot until you can see," Fatty Olivia commands. Cop Olivia snarls.

"You always fucking say that," she huffs; her grip on her gun remains steady.

"Well then stop shooting blind!" she retorts... to herself.

"You can't just assume that they're not going to hurt us!"

Preggers rolls her eyes. "You can't assume that they iwill/i. Innocent until proven guilty, remember?"

The footsteps come closer.

"I'm not waiting around to get killed," Cop Olivia mutters. The trigger is so tight, so ready… just one or two squeezes and she's home free…

"Wait," Pregnant Self commands.

Footsteps. Slow. Steady. And…

The shadows recede.

Elliot.

"It's just me," he says calmly. His left hand stretches in front of him in a conciliatory gesture. His right hand…

… is being held by Little Olivia in her Christmas dress.

Cop Olivia frowns, tenses. Her muscles are so ready, so poised—

"Don't shoot, Serena," Little Olivia says sternly. Her voice is disturbingly woman-like.

Don't shoot.

Don't shoot—

Wait.

Serena?

A quick flicker of her eyes to a mirror that has suddenly appeared on the wall beside her almost causes her to drop her gun.

Grey eyes, not brown.

Petite features. Wide mouth.

Fair skin.

With a series of deafening, resounding explosions, it hits her— she's Serena.

The realization is hardly upon her when she realizes the explosions are gunshots.

Elliot is on the ground, blood oozing from a wound she cannot see. His eyes are bright as they stare into hers.

"Elliot," she breathes, horrified.

"Friendly fire," he says calmly. "Don't forget to run the ballistics on that shot."

His eyes close then, jaw instantly slackened as if he's dozing. The pool of blood continues to spread around him until it is finally at her toes. It is red, crimson and incriminating and it smells like metal—

She wakes up with a violent start, soaked in her own sweat and gasping for air.

*

Her dreams are not prophesies. She knows that. But damn it, Elliot's always working and there's not a lot else for her to do except take her vitamins, indulge in short-lived strolls around old haunts in the city, and dwell on her weird-ass unconscious musings.

Today she pokes at her belly to acknowledge the barrage of activity within and wonders what exactly she could interpret her latest dream to mean. Any way she slices it, it's hard to get around the fact that she was her own mother, that she'd shot Elliot, and that the overwhelming emotion she'd felt upon discovering she'd done so was fear at what she was capable of.

Huang would have a field day.

*

Elliot finishes Baby Girl's nursery on a Sunday afternoon – at least, the note he leaves says it's finished. He'd gotten a call while Olivia was out grocery shopping – for non-organic burger patties, thank you very much – and had written as much in a hasty scrawl across one of the ever-present post-its in her apartment.

It's unsettling to know he's working so much without her, that he's finding a rhythm with some new guy while she putters around her apartment. Crusading against eco-terrorists undercover was hard enough, but even then she'd had the benefit of constant activity, of human interaction. Persephone had made several friends and she's embarrassed to admit that she still misses them from time to time.

She and Elliot haven't discussed their professional future, but a question mark looms above their partnership. She'd never admit this to Cragen, but the prospect of working SVU hours has recently become increasingly daunting. She can't imagine being able to find a sitter when a late-night call comes in, or being able to afford one, should he or she exist. On the other hand, she's scared her mind is becoming flabby and listless from the disuse of her investigative skills. Maybe she should have Elliot stage a scavenger hunt for her, just to keep her sharp.

She examines his latest post-it with a thoughtful frown.

_Nursery done. Got a call. _

— _E _

Captain Loquacious P. Eloquence, she thinks dryly. And then it hits her—

The nursery is _done_.

She drops her bags on the floor with a thump; the post-it flutters, forgotten, to the ground. Olivia peers down her hallway. The nursery door is shut; some of the afternoon light shines from the space between the door and the carpet, a streak of quicksilver light in the dim space.

Her feet seem to grow heavier as she treks toward that shaft of light, and she can hear herself starting to breathe in shallow pants. Ridiculous, she tells herself. You're being ridiculous. It's the same damn room you've been pouring your paycheck into for the last nine months. Ridiculous.

And then she is there, her hand on the doorknob and she absolutely needs this room to look the way she'd envisioned, for a sunburst to highlight a chamber of child-rearing perfection, for celestial choirs to drown out her heartbeat as she takes her first look. Anything less, she fears, will lead to Total Pregnant Bitch Meltdown.

Just the nursery, she repeats. If something's wrong, you can change it.

Just the nursery.

And then the door is open and she's standing, open-mouthed and frozen, in the doorway. No miraculous bursts of light, no angelic cantatas— just her and the thudding of her pulse in the small, still room.

She exhales a slow, shaky breath.

Don't cry, she tells herself sternly. Don't you dare cry. You're pregnant, not crazy.

Her eyes flicker from surface to surface in an attempt to take it all in, to absorb the finished product. She mentally congratulates herself on the decision to veto Casey's sea foam green paint in favor of a warmer, mossy spring color. With a smile, she's reminded of city courtyards and life popping up in the most unexpected places.

The furniture, with its black and white accents, is aesthetically pleasing, but not too trendy. Silver picture frames sit empty, killing time until the day they can show the world that Olivia is a mother, a imom/i, and that Baby Girl loves her enough to overlook any glaring shortcomings. If a picture could show that, anyway; she's not sure. Maybe she can Photoshop a competent maternal instinct into their first picture together.

There is the dresser, already sparsely occupied by tiny onesies and microscopic baby socks.

There is the crib where her daughter will sleep. Olivia already knows she'll spend hours leaning over it, staring into Baby Girl's face. Making sure she's real.

And there is the chair where they'll rock together; she'll sing Baby Girl Hap Palmer's "Old Rocking Chair" lullaby, and her daughter will doze on her chest— not the other way around.

And there is the changing table…

Her eyes well up, and she lets them.

Forty-five minutes later, the front door slams with a resounding bang as Elliot walks in; she can't find it within herself to be annoyed with him presently.

"Liv?" he yells. She hears the rustling of plastic and muffled cursing and stifles a grimace; she'd forgotten to put her groceries away. She's been sitting in her rocking chair, rubbing her belly and soaking in the silence.

"In here," she replies.

Moments later, she looks up to find him in the doorway, his face etched with weariness and concern. His disheveled appearance makes the corners of her mouth pull up slightly.

"Hey. Everything okay?"

She nods and his face relaxes, just a little bit.

"Can't stay long," he sighs. "I'm meeting up with John. Looks like we're pulling an all-nighter."

"Okay."

He frowns. "But you're okay?"

"Yeah," she answers, her voice husky.

Elliot looks skeptical. "You sure?"

"I'm sure."

He steps further into the room, the looming silhouette of his trench coat at dramatic odds with the tranquility of the nursery. "What do you think?" he asks. "Casey said the walls might be too dark—"

"Casey's an idiot," Olivia says with a small grin. Elliot smirks.

It's perfect.

*

But not everything is perfect.

Elliot's been working two cases and it shows; the circles under his eyes grow darker, his temper grows shorter, his eyes stay glassy, hollow and haunted. He's back in the fray, battling demons and degenerates, and all she can do is watch from the sidelines and hope he'll talk about it before assaulting a locker.

It's what she's wishing for on a rainy Tuesday morning as she watches him pace doggedly around the apartment, barking directives into his cell phone while he gets ready for work. She sits on the couch with her cup of tea and wishes she had access to a mid- to long-range tranquilizer gun.

And a heating pad. Her pregnancy-riddled gastrointestinal tract is killing her; she prays Elliot can leave before something unladylike occurs.

"—needed to hear back on the results two days ago," he snaps at whatever unfortunate soul is on the other end of the phone. "That's what you said—don't interrupt me—that's what you said two damn _days_ ago." Who is it? she mouths. He waves her off. "I'll be there in twenty minutes. If you've got any fucking sense, you'll be ready when I get there."

She watches as he snaps his phone shut, shoving it into his pocket and moving to the small oval mirror by the front door to adjust his necktie.

"What was that about?" she asks in a deceptively calm voice, sipping her chamomile. Elliot stops muttering to himself long enough to look at her.

"Uh… nothing," he mumbles, buttoning his cuffs. "Just… got this case."

She stares at him. "And…?"

He shrugs into his jacket. Grabs his overcoat. Checks his pockets. "Long story. Tell you later."

Ah. She's been waiting for this day to come, for Elliot to finally look at her and see delicate, pregnant-lady ears. Baby equals Delicate. "Think you'll be back for dinner?"

"I don't-- Maybe."

Translation: Don't wait up.

"Right. So I'll take a cab to my appointment?"

He freezes, his hand on the doorknob. "That's today?"

"Yep."

"Shit," he sighs.

"I'll take a cab."

"I'll take you."

Her eyebrows climb. "You sure?"

"What time?"

"Pick me up at 2:30. Appointment's at 3:00."

And he's gone, his coat tails swirling out around him as he disappears through the door.

She wakes up from a heavy nap at 3:27 and Elliot is nowhere to be found or heard from. She wonders what it means that she's only mildly surprised at his failure to show. Or call.

Fuck.

Dr. Patel's receptionist cheerfully informs her that Dr. Patel is very busy and normally doesn't make time for patients who skip appointments without calling but yes, yes we can try to fit you in tomorrow.

Great, she mutters into the receiver. Her head is killing her.

She's asleep again, almost as soon as the call is disconnected.

*

She wakes up hungry and disoriented; her naps don't normally last for – she glances at her alarm clock – five hours.

Elliot is still gone and she's not his partner at the moment, but surely she can still do something to take care of him without feeling too domestic. She calls in an order to Better Burger and walks three blocks to claim said order before knuckling under to the embarrassingly acute fatigue that dogs her every step and has her hailing a cab.

Almost forty dollars later – cab fare plus dinner – she struggles up the steps of the 16th Precinct, resolving to silently dare Elliot to not adore her for providing, on a thoughtful whim, ample supplies of red meat and enhanced pregnancy cleavage.

She's out of breath in a humiliating way on the elevator and is thankful, for once, for the giant protrusion from her abdomen. It's easier to excuse being out of shape when a human being is sitting on her pelvic bone.

Speaking of… she pats her stomach gently; it's been bothering her a lot more in the last few days. Baby Girl needs to get out.

It's been four weeks since she'd begun her maternity leave, and she taps her foot in anticipation of the comforting buzz of the bullpen. The doors ding open and she hurries through the familiar route to her and Elliot's desks.

It's almost ten o'clock at night and the die-harders are all here, brainstorming, spitballing, following up on things… God, she misses this.

"I think you've got the wrong building," someone calls dryly. "The nursery's down the street."

Olivia turns to see Munch strolling toward her with a smirk; she tries not to drool at the file in his hand as he awkwardly hugs her. "Good to see you," she says warmly.

"You too." He nods at the bag in her hand. "You bring enough to share?"

Shit. No, she didn't, and that's fine. But her big, dumb, pregnant brain hadn't thought as far as explaining why she is bringing dinner for Elliot and herself.

"You wish," she rejoins after a moment. "Elliot asked me to bring him some dinner."

He frowns. "In your condition?"

"My icondition/i?"

"Easy, Betty Friedan. It's just—should you be out like this?"

"Keep digging," she snaps, only half-joking. "Where's Elliot?"

"He's out. And he already ate," Munch adds pointedly. "So if you're looking to unload some food…"

"I'll keep you in mind." She glances down at the folder he's holding, feeling her curiosity pique. "Is that what you and Elliot are working on?"

"Ah, ah," he replies. She sighs at the chastisement in his tone. "We cut you off cold turkey so you could eat bon-bons and grow a healthy human being and inot/i tramp around Manhattan at ten o'clock. I, for one, don't want to be the schmuck who lures you off the wagon."

"Very funny," she scowls. "I'll wait for Elliot."

"Be my guest. I'm running this downstairs."

He leaves her to her own devices and she walks into the bullpen, savoring the familiar sounds and smells as she places the food on her clean desk. For all intents and purposes, she's the one he's been coming home too, and she wonders if Elliot notices anymore that she's not sitting across from him.

Several people in the area give her vague, semi-friendly waves and she nods in acknowledgement, settling into her squeaky chair to wait for Elliot.

She lasts seven minutes before digging into her dinner. The burger juices run down one of her hands as she takes a bite and she sighs in contentment.

"I'm going to file a complaint if you don't keep it down."

Munch is back. Olivia rolls her eyes. "Not a jury in the land would convict me." She chews thoughtfully for a moment. "Elliot go out by himself?"

"Fin went with him, leaving yours truly a mountain of paperwork that could have been yours, had you the sense to stay on a little longer."

"Sorry," she grins, standing up. She's finished her fries before she was ready to be done; Elliot's will just have to take one for the team. "I guess you'll just have to—"

Everything stops.

Something is different.

The world spins, blurs, and then comes into focus with startling clarity.

"Liv?"

Munch's voice sounds miles away, echoing in her mind like a pebble in a vast pond.

Speaking of pond…

She looks down at herself before realizing that her bulge prevents her from seeing much of anything. It doesn't matter. She knows what wet pants feel like.

"Liv?" John asks again, frowning. "You alright?"

The wetness spreads. Her heartbeat speeds.

"Either get your keys or call a bus," she says bluntly. "My water just broke."

*

**Quick A/N: **

**It's come to my attention that some of you like this story a little **_**too**_** much. What I mean by that is, you've taken an element or elements of my story and copied it (with or without slight modifications), claiming it as your own work. This is PLAGIARISM and is a big no-no.**

**If you see this happening, please let me know. If **_**I**_** see this happening, I will report you to the webmaster. I'm not losing sleep over this, but I've busted my ass for almost two years on this story, and I really don't feel like sharing the credit with someone just because they've mastered the copy+paste option.**

**ANYWAY, the rest of you wonderful readers are adored by me. I thank you for your time and reviews.**

**- hollelujah**


	48. Virtus tentamine gaudet

**WOW.**

**Can I tell you how blown away I am by the reviews and PMs I've received? Well, I have been. You guys are wunderbar.**

**I'm posting this so quickly because I worked on it with a sense of urgency. I worked on it with a sense of urgency because I barely received any reviews telling me to "Hurry up and update!" Call me crazy, call it reverse psychology, but the reviews that talk about what they like about this story is what really lights a fire under me. Hint hint.**

**Don't be shy!**

_**Strength rejoices in the challenge.**_

*

Expectations – she's had them.

She'd expected the game "Simon" to be one of her Christmas presents in 1976.

She'd expected her mother to be semi-sober at her college graduation.

She'd expected Police Academy to be a whole hell of a lot easier.

She'd expected to wow her new partner, Elliot Stabler, with her expertise on sex crimes and her hard-ass street smarts.

She'd expected Munch to man up and take her to the hospital instead of radioing for an ambulance.

She's currently being wheeled onto said ambulance by a pair of EMTs who look insultingly bored as they nonchalantly perform various emergency medical checks on her. Munch climbs into the ambulance behind them, an anxious mosquito to her placid, laboring hippo.

"Are you okay?" he asks for the forty-seventh time.

"I'm fine," she replies, irritated. "And if I'm not, well—we're on a goddamn ambulance."

"You're fine," EMT #1 reports nonchalantly. "We're just gonna take a little ride."

So informative, she thinks acidly. So helpful.

"Who should I call?" buzzes the Mosquito.

Spiteful in her annoyance, she's really tempted to bring up the way he looks in his dress blues. Ridiculous. Like a scrawny twelve year old boy who found daddy's cop uniform and some salt-and-pepper hair dye. Mostly salt.

Instead, she glares at him. "What?" And those glasses. Who the hell wears Blue Blockers?

He holds up his phone with a worried frown. "Who do I need to call? Do you have a birth buddy?"

"'A birth buddy?'"

"Wasn't Casey helping you out?"

"I… ah…" she hisses as a cramp passes through her abdomen. "Elliot."

"Just relax, Detective," EMT #1 instructs in a bland voice.

"What is your name?" she demands.

Munch, shellshocked, is delayed. "Elliot?"

"Jeff," the EMT #1 replies.

"Just call him and tell him to meet us at—Wait, where are we going?"

"St. Vincent's." Ah, she thinks dryly. EMT #2 decides to join us. "Baby's heartrate's a little high," he murmurs to Jeff.

"Tell Elliot to meet us at St. Vincent's. And tell him to hurry—ah, shit. What's a little high?" she hisses.

"Everything's fine. Just relax—"

"I'll relax—ah!—when I don't have a kid preparing to tunnel through my _fucking pelvis_," she bites out.

Her outburst earns her a smirk from Jeff. Fucker.

"Still not answering," Munch announces. It's the closest she's seen him to panic in a long time. "They must be busy."

"Hope it's important—Gah!" _Shit_, this hurts.

"I'm sure they'll call. They've gotta call back. They've gotta have their phones on them," Munch mutters.

Buzz buzz buzz. She's angry at the world right now.

"Not if they're _busy_," she snaps. No more no more no more, her brain chants frantically. We deserve a do-over. Go back in time and tell Kurt you're not in the mood. Or at least to double-wrap it. "What's a little high?" she repeats.

"Your baby's not in any kind of distress," Jeff responds kindly. "You need to relax."

Relax. This _hurts_.

And then… it's over.

"You've got some mild contractions," EMT #2 announces, and she fights the urge to kick him in the jaw until he admits that he's an idiot. "It's just the beginning."

Aside from the annoying bedside manners of Jeff and Captain Obvious, it is an uneventful ride. Munch continues to announce each failed attempt to contact both Elliot and Fin on their cell phones, and she forces herself not to think of miscalculations, officers down or things gone wrong.

Fuck Elliot, anyway. She shouldn't be worrying about whether or not he's on a stretcher when she's already occupying one of her own.

And fuck John, too, for calling a goddamn ambulance. Is it so hard to drive? The man has a fucking siren on his car.

She may need to clean up her language before her daughter makes an appearance; Elliot will never let her live it down if this kid's first word is 'fuck.'

"Still not picking up." Buzz buzz buzz.

"You know what? Why don't you just tell me when they do," she suggests sharply.

Munch's brow furrows. "Just thought you'd want—"

"I don't," she barks. "I'm _busy_."

*

She'd expected her job to always be her number one.

She'd expected Kurt to buy condoms that wouldn't dissolve upon usage.

She'd expected a life with few connections or obligations outside the ones she allowed.

She'd expected pregnancy to be a whole hell of a lot easier than Police Academy.

Right now, she's expecting Munch to keep it the hell together. She has a feeling she's in for a world of disappointment.

It's half past midnight and she's dressed to kill, resplendent in a gigantic hospital gown and her socks. She's been given the all-clear by a Labor & Delivery resident, who then told her to try walking around the hallways like the Ghost of fucking Christmas Unplanned Pregnancies in order to speed up the labor process. Munch is beside her, humming with awkwardness and glowing with nervous energy as he helps her along.

The situation is, how do you say, uncomfortable.

"I'm ready to go back," she announces, grimacing at the tightness in her abdomen, at the pain in her lower back. Next time she sees Kurt, she's going to Riverdance all over his balls. That'll show him.

"Olivia!"

She turns at the sound of her name, and a grimace already tightening the muscles in her face because she knows _exactly_ who the voice belongs to.

Speak of the devil.

"Kurt," she says flatly. She wonders if he knows how he looks when he runs, all gangly limbs and crepe-y neck skin, before deciding he does not. If he did, he'd never, ever do it again.

Her kid had better not run like that.

"I came as soon as your partner called," he explains as he reaches her. He bends down to catch his breath before straightening. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she replies, scowling at Munch. He _would_. "You really didn't need to come all the way down here."

Kurt's face pinches. She hates that. "I wanted to be here, Olivia," he says softly.

"Kurt," she sighs. "What you want is not very high on my list of priorities right now."

"This isn't just your kid."

Fuck.

Her baby daddy just played a trump card.

Great.

They stare at each other for several long moments and she realizes how little she knows about him. He's an editor. He has annoying tendencies. He gets manicures. He's got blue eyes, sandy brown hair and probably tans well. His neck skin is weird. His voice is husky, his fingers long and slender. He thins his lips when he's annoyed and shivers when he comes. He likes pretentious things, like Khalil Gibran and World music.

She knows so little, and yet they're about to become parents together. Well, lesson learned, she thinks caustically.

Olivia really hates it when Kurt kills her wishful thinking buzz; she'd almost forgotten that he was necessary to conceive the heartbeat in her belly, the shifting in her womb.

And yet, here he is, over-eager and ready to help.

"Well then," she says, and her voice feels heavy with reluctance and resignation. "Help me back to bed."

*

Dr. Patel is annoyingly cheerful for a man who has been paged in the middle of the night.

"Detective Olivia!" he exclaims as he strolls into her room. She blinks; he looks different in scrubs. "How are we doing tonight? Are we ready for the little baby girl?"

"Does it matter?" she asks dryly. "She seems hellbent on getting here either way."

"That is true," he says with a grin. Then, noticing her expression: "Why so gloomy? We need to get excited! There is a _baby_ coming tonight! You cannot say hello to her without a smile."

"I'll smile when—" and then she stops as it hits her all over again.

A baby is coming.

A baby.

For the tenth time in as many minutes, the shock of what is happening crashes into her psyche. She's having a baby. She's having a baby _tonight_.

Today's her daughter's birthday.

Olivia gulps; she's not ready.

*

She'd expected to keep in touch with her half-brother. As it turned out, knowing her family was harder than knowing about them.

She'd expected Mila to be kicked off of Project Runway.

She'd expected Baby Girl to be born on a sunny afternoon, preferably after ten minutes of light pushing.

She'd expected to have a good book with her in the hospital.

She'd expected to have Elliot with her in the hospital.

The chair beside her bed sits empty; from the hall, she can hear John and Kurt arguing over Something She Does Not Care About.

Fuck Elliot, anyway.

*

It's half past two o'clock in the morning, and there is pain in her abdomen from the baby and pain in her ass from Kurt and John and pain in her head from worrying and wondering where the _fuck_ Elliot is.

"Ice chips?"

She glares at the father-to-be. "I'm good."

"Cold washcloth?"

"No."

"Water? Gatorade?"

"No. Thank. You."

"What about—"

"Kurt, when I need something, you'll be the first to know," she says sharply.

It's enough to shut him up, and he retreats to the hallway, rejoining Mosquito as he tries to reach her AWOL partner.

She strains to hear the details in John's buzzing for several minutes before exhaustion weighs down her eyelids and she drifts into a fitful doze.

*

She's dreaming.

The ocean is a stunning blue, the kind she's seen in postcards of Santorini and Elliot's eyes. Waves lap gently at the sides of the little white rowboat she occupies, the soft slapping of the water against the boards calming her, the breeze cooling her.

"It's lovely, isn't?" Serena asks quietly.

It is. Olivia nods, awash in the weightless euphoria that accompanies good dreams that don't make sense. She doesn't question why she's sitting in a rowboat across from her mother. Serena seems just as unaffected, her figure still and thoughtful as she looks out over the water, her lips moving over hushed, reverent words.

"'…_Whispering, I love you, long before I die_…'" she murmurs.

"What's that from?" Olivia asks, frowning.

Serena is silent for several moments before responding, leaning over to delicately trail her fingers through the lapping water. "It's Whitman, Libby. Remember? You hated his work in high school."

"Oh."

"But you did love that poem. You'd read it out loud to me on the weekends, from my anthology. You chose it several times. Do you remember?"

Olivia answers her with a soundless nod; she has many memories of Serena on a Saturday morning, haggard and reclined on the sofa with a hangover; she'd enjoyed the soothing cadences of classic literature, and Olivia had always been eager to oblige. "I liked Tennyson better."

"He was your favorite, I believe."

Olivia nods again. "He was."

Serena's grey eyes continue to stare out across the sweeping expanse of the sea; there is a green coast behind her, one which Olivia thinks she should want to explore. But she doesn't. There is more of the unknown in the clean, unbloated lines of her mother's face, in the peace and clarity of her gaze, in the lightness of her tone. This is her mother as she should have been, without the bother of being unloved and unwanted by her family and her men. This is the woman who would have been satisfied with the adoration of her only daughter.

"Lord Tennyson's _Poems_ didn't do very well," Serena muses thoughtfully, her long slender fingers combing windswept hair from her face. "I led a seminar on his work in '92. Do you remember?"

"I remember you telling me about it."

"Fascinating man—devoted to his friend, Hallam. He didn't publish anything for nearly ten years after Hallam died. Not one thing."

"I know."

"The reviews for _Poems_ didn't help; it crushed him. You used to read _In Memoriam_ as well, if memory serves. Canto 54."

Olivia looks away from the blue of the horizon, staring at her mother in surprise. "You remember that?"

Serena nods. "You were seven or eight when you first read it aloud—you had to stop to ask me what 'chaff' was."

"Oh."

"But you never cared for Whitman… it's a pity. He had such a gift. Whitman was a warrior poet. Sensitive, like Tennyson, but stronger. It takes a certain resolve to challenge the sexual mores of the nineteenth century."

Olivia nods slowly, continuing to hold Serena's gaze. The boat continues to rock gently with the rhythm of the water, the occasional sprinkle hitting Olivia's arms only to be dried moments later by the breeze.

"Why are we talking about poetry?" Olivia asks after a moment. Serena says nothing for a moment, dipping her fingers into the water again and examining the small breaks the disturbance causes in the water.

"Because it's lovely," she answers after a small silence. "And there are so few lovely things in the world. '_I too am part of that ocean, my love—we are not so much separated_….'" Serena smiles at her. "Whitman."

Olivia stares at her mother, outlined by a summer sky and saltwater wind, and slowly, slowly smiles back._  
_

They sit in companionable silence until Olivia is finally pulled away from the small, white rowboat by the crimson pain of another contraction.

*

"Your cervix is stubborn," Patel announces from between her knees.

She frowns. "What?"

"You are only dilated four centimeters."

Okay. "What are you telling me?"

"Well," he replies cheerfully. "Normally I would be saying to you, 'Detective Olivia, we are going to squeeze a watermelon-baby out of a orange-hole.' But now, I would be saying, 'Detective Olivia, we are going to squeeze a watermelon-baby through the eye of a needle."

He finishes this terrifying statement with a laugh.

Olivia is Not Laughing.

"Just Olivia," she corrects automatically. "And what the hell are you going to do?" she demands.

"If you're not dilating more by six o'clock, I am going to give you pitocin."

Her eyebrows shoot up. "Pitocin? You want to induce?"

"Only if we must. We want your little girl to be calm and happy when she gets here, Detective Olivia."

"We discussed this. I want a natural birth plan. I don't want to induce."

"We will try your way for a few more hours." He wags his eyebrows. "If you don't want to induce, I suggest you think of some ways to make this easier on your little watermelon. Try walking some more."

Well, shit.

A quick knock sounds at the door before Munch pokes his head in. "Sorry," he says with a nod to Dr. Patel. "Liv, Elliot just called. He's on his way."

*

She's waddling down the hall at a glacial pace, feeling small shifts within as gravity does its part for the great Uterine Exodus. Munch's nervous energy has faded considerably with fatigue and time, which means no more buzzing – he's now an acceptable walking partner.

Especially when he's relating to her the story of Why the Hell Elliot Is Not Here.

"Elliot," he explains. "Is apparently a one-man disaster zone whenever you decide to take a couple days off."

"What the hell does that mean?" she asks, smirking in spite of herself.

"It means I went in on McClusky with him and got shot. Fin goes with him for Kevin Stuart, they both end up bobbing for perverts in some rich guy's swimming pool. It's why I couldn't get in touch with them."

Bobbing for perverts, she thinks with a mental sigh. Of course. She wonders if their service weapons got wet as well.

They're rounding on their fourth lap and she's beginning to perspire with discomfort. She's internally debating whether or not the natural birth plan – which sounded so perfect several months before – is really her best option. Maybe she's a bigger pussy than she'd thought—

"Liv!"

For the second time, she turns around to see the person approaching her, but this is different because her entire body relaxes, just a bit, as it recognizes that voice, those thudding footsteps as they jog toward her.

Elliot is loping down the hallway _sans_ overcoat and suit jacket, his eyes bloodshot and underlined by purple circles, his face pale and tired. He looks like he hasn't slept in days, and she feels a twinge of remorse that her womb decided to evict Baby Girl in the middle of the night.

She's still pissed, though.

"The hell have you been?" she demands.

"You wouldn't believe it if I told you," he pants.

"Bobbing for perverts," Munch mutters.

Elliot glances at him before focusing on her face with a worried frown. "How much are you dilated?"

"Easy with the details," Munch cautions. "We're not all her birth buddies."

"Birth buddies?"

"Olivia said—"

"Don't worry about it. I thought you were in a ditch somewhere—"

"I know," he interrupts. "I know. I'll tell you all about it, it's a long story, we'll talk about it later. Just tell me what's going on."

His litany of deflections rolls out of his mouth with ease; she suspects it's from having to explain away his chronic absences to worried family members. "I'm only dilated four centimeters. They're going to induce in a few hours if I'm not farther along."

He nods, brows knit together as he assimilates the information. "Okay," he breathes.

"Okay?"

"You good?"

Her anxiety over his safety had begun melting away the moment she'd seen him; his simple question finishes the job, and she'll deal with the rest of her emotional fuckfest when she's got time. For the past several hours, her brain has been virtually unable to focus on anything outside of the context of today.

Elliot's here. Elliot's here. Elliot's here.

"Liv?"

"I'm good," she says simply, and takes his soaking arm.

*

Walking, Olivia decides, is good for nothing. Her contractions are still ridiculously far apart, her cervix still ridiculously un-dilated.

The nurse smiles as she begins Olivia's pitocin drip. "This should help things along," she says kindly.

Elliot sits in the chair by her bed, thumbing absently through one of the books Munch has retrieved – along with her overnight bag and several other means of entertainment – from her apartment. He's eschewed his pool-soaked suit for a pair of scrubs, compliments of a flirtatious nurse that briefly starred in Olivia's fantasy of shoving the young girl down the hospital elevator shaft. She wishes she could blame her violent urges on the medication, but the IV's only been in for two minutes. Flirtatious-Nurse-in-Elevator-Shaft Fantasy happened three times over an hour ago.

"Think you can make it without the epidural?" Elliot asks, smothering a yawn.

"That's the plan," she sighs.

*

Fuck plans.

Within twenty minutes, she is sweating, gasping, grunting in pain and wracked by the spasms in her abdominal muscles.

She is burning and freezing and breathless—

"Breathe, Olivia," Elliot instructs firmly. Her eyes unclench to find him tense, leaning over to her, his fingers crushed in her grip, his other hand behind her head. "You've gotta breathe."

"He's right, honey," Tia – her labor nurse, she realizes vaguely – commands. "You remember your breathing techniques?"

What breathing techniques? she wants to scream. What is breathing?

Another contraction—_fuck._

"God!" she screams.

"Alright, honey," Tia says calmly. "You're gonna get through this. You're doing great. Just breathe."

Just breathe. Breathe.

She can't do this. She can't. She can't. She can't.

Comprehension dawns on her through the haze of agony – the same kind she'd had on her first rollercoaster as the cars inched further and further up the track towards the first big drop. It's the realization that it's too late to go back, that this is it, that there is no easy way out. The thought and the panic it brings freezes her before she steels her pain-addled spine and braces herself.

She can't do this, but she will anyway.

*

Dr. Patel is back, announcing that it's been two hours since she's begun the IV Drip from Hell.

Two hours.

Her world has shrunk to include only the expanse of skin between her breasts and her hips, to the pain that shudders throughout her entire body with every contraction. It is the stabbing of a dull knife, a rope burn and a giant, bruising cramp all rolled into one mind-scalding cacophony of physical anguish, and she can barely look past it enough to see that Elliot is beside himself.

She grunts in pain as Dr. Patel examines her—how far does he need to reach, anyway? Did the baby get lost?

"Ooooookay," says he brightly from between her knees. "Olivia, we are dilated to seven centimeters!"

'We' my ass, she wants to yell.

"I can actually see a head and hair when I look in your birth canal," he exclaims, looking at Elliot. "Would you like to—"

Elliot blanches. "No," he says quickly. "I'm—just. No."

"We are almost there," Patel announces. "Just a little bit longer."

*

'A little bit longer' – such a subjective term, she thinks. She's floating away in a hazy, crazy, wavy dream world of pain and cold and nimbus clouds. Her fingers feel heavy.

Through blue skies and bay breezes she can hear Elliot, his voice weighted and sharp with worry. She tries to tell him that she's fine, but _god_ she still hurts, and can't somebody go back in time and explain to her that epidurals aren't the worst thing in the world?

Somewhere to her left, a giant purple hamster agrees.

What the hell _is_ this stuff? she thinks, only vaguely curious. Her belly continues to shudder and heave, her mind to fly and float, and she closes her eyes and revels in the sounds of the waves against her rowboat.

*

She gasps into Santorini blue skies.

Serena's concerned eyes bore into her. "It hurts, doesn't it?" she asks quietly.

Nodding, Olivia lets out a strangled sob.

"'_With no language but a cry_,'" Serena mumurs. "Do you remember?"

*

"Olivia?"

"Tennyson!" she yells. And opens her eyes.

There is no Serena, no rowboat. The only blue is Elliot's eyes as they stare at her worriedly. "That stuff they're giving you—you've been in and out. You're at eight centimeters now."

"Oh."

"Do you want anything?"

"No," she pants. "Just… I don't think… _shit_… I think I want the epidural."

Elliot nods, but his face looks relieved. "I'll let your doctor know."

Don't leave me alone, she wants to say. But doesn't.

The monitors beep in perfect time to the throbbing of her body.

*

She's lost her natural birth plan. And her dignity.

In several short moments she'll be pain-free, and it's this thought and this thought alone that allows her to sit up and then bend over as they prepare the injection site. Elliot holds her in a full nelson as they give her the drugs, and she's not sure, but she wouldn't surprised if he never, ever wants to have sex with her again.

*

It's time.

Her contractions are now five minutes apart, she's fully dilated, and Dr. Patel is putting her legs in the stirrups of her labor bed. Elliot dutifully remains by her head.

"Okay, Olivia," Patel crows. "We are going to push nice and hard when I tell you, okay?"

Olivia nods, feeling the perspiration roll down her face, pooling in the space between her collar bones. It has been thirteen hours and she is a beached whale, bloated and dirty and tired and tear-stained, ready for this to be over. Her traitorous lower lip trembles with exhaustion as her contraction starts; she purses her mouth to control it.

She looks up at Elliot, at the weary lines around his eyes and mouth, the gentle, tired eyes, the small, concentrated smile. Despite his small grin, his face is drawn and pallid, fatigue emanating from him like a scent.

"What?" she asks, frowning at the tightening of her abdomen.

"You're doing great," he says quietly.

No sound comes out, and her mouthed 'thank you' is received with a squeeze of her hand as Dr. Patel assumes his post between the stirrups.

"Push!" he commands.

So she does.

*

She's been pushing for twenty-eight minutes.

"You've got this, you've got this, you've got this," Elliot chants.

"Breathe, breathe, breathe," Tia tells her.

"Push! Push! Push!" commands Dr. Patel.

Everyone SHUT UP, she wants to scream, but she doesn't have the breath to follow through and it stays in her head. Everything is gone now, everything but the voices around her and the heat of her hand in Elliot's grasp and the bearing down, the gravity, the weight down below.

"…eight…nine…ten… very good," croons Tia.

"Push!" Patel exclaims. "Take a breath and _push_!"

She pushes. And pushes. And—

A yanking, a pressure, another exclamation from Dr. Patel and a death-grip squeeze on her hand… and—

And then the weight is on her stomach, and not in it.

She opens her eyes as a shrill squall fills the room in short, sharp bursts.

There is movement all around her, there is a clamp on the cord and Patel hands Elliot the scissors and the nurses are moving in the background, cleaning and covering and—

"Oh," she breathes, her eyes fixated on the pink, pruny creature in front of her. "Oh… oh."

"Beautiful," one of the nurses coos.

Beautiful, Olivia's tired mind repeats. Beautiful. Beautiful—

"My name's Stephanie and I'm going to be bathing her," one of the nurses explains. "Listen to that cry!"

"Big lungs!" Dr. Patel laughs. "Big, beautiful lungs for a big, beautiful girl."

Olivia watches, transfixed, as Stephanie towels off the little body resting on her chest before wrapping her in a dry blanket and encasing the tiny head in a pink beanie. "I'm just going to listen to her heart and lungs," she says quietly, reaching her stethoscope inside the blanket's cocoon.

It is too much, it is too much and she cannot do this, her brain can't think, can't slow down enough to fathom, to wrap itself around this tiny, tiny, perfect, pink, screaming center of the universe.

Too much. Too much.

Numbly, she tears her gaze away from her daughter to look at Elliot.

He's staring at her. As their eyes meet she realizes that he hasn't let go of her hand. Or she hasn't let go of his. At this point, she's not sure anymore.

Elliot's eyes are bright and suspiciously damp. She'd tease him, but her vision is being perpetually blurred by her own tears as they relentlessly stream down her face.

"She's perfect," he says after a moment, and his voice cracks.

She doesn't trust herself to speak, so she nods silently before turning back to the baby.

You're the scariest, most perfect thing I've ever seen, she thinks.

Her daughter wails in response.

All of her expectations are surrendered, surpassed.

*

**A/N: **

**Serena and Olivia's conversation references excerpts from the following poems:**

_**Out of the Rolling Ocean, the Crowd**_** – Walt Whitman**

_**In Memoriam, A.H.H. (Canto 54)**_** – Alfred, Lord Tennyson**

**Serena was right – both of these works are lovely.**


	49. Bellum domesticum

**Undying gratitude and appreciation to Mousie; her unparalleled beta skills and subsequent feedback left me with suspiciously watery eyes (because of happiness, don't worry). She's the wind beneath my wings… you might not be reading these chapters if it wasn't for her encouragement! **

**So, all together, everyone say, "Thank you, Mousie."**

**[waits patiently.]**

**Good. I love this chapter, and I hope you will, too.**

_**War in the Family**_

*

Some breaths are re-births.

Her chest is full and still; she is speechless, caught in the beauty of her daughter.

Her _daughter -- _the world changes, she can feel it happening, its focal point shrinking, shrinking to exclude the doctor, the nurses, Elliot… until it's just her and the baby.

Olivia looks and looks and looks.

Puckered brow.

Open mouth.

Dark hair.

Pink skin.

Her daughter has pink skin.

And then Olivia's chest deflates, and every bit of air she's ever inhaled comes rushing out of her lungs; she is limp and frightened and flying... her eyes cannot take in enough detail.

"Look at her-- she knows her momma," Tia says with a smile as the squalling begins to quiet. Breathless still, Olivia pulls her daughter even closer.

Warm.

Soft.

Sweet.

With a hesitant, trembling finger, she reaches down to the small pucker in between the miniature eyebrows. With a gentle brush, she tries to smooth it out.

Her daughter is having none of it. The frown remains.

Perfect.

Olivia holds her, cradling her gently on her thighs and forearms, marveling at the infinite perfection of her face. The feathery brush of her eyelashes, the cupid bow lips, the button nose…

_Mine_, something inside of her whispers fiercely.

After several moments, she realizes that there is a voice that has been speaking in the background, and it penetrates Olivia's consciousness enough to elicit a blink.

"What did you say?"

"I've got a third ID band," Tia repeats. "Do you want him to have it?"

"Yes," Olivia states decisively. "Elliot?"

The lines on his face furrow deep, his frown more pronounced. He seems to be choosing his words. "Don't look at me like that, Liv. I—what about Kurt?"

"What _about_ Kurt?" she asks with no small amount of hostility.

He levels a steady gaze at her. "Did you know he's been in the waiting room this whole time."

No, she didn't know that. Shit. Unbidden, a twinge of guilt tugs at her conscience… but just a twinge.

Elliot notices her resolve. "You don't think he should be able to see his own daughter?" he asks quietly.

She bristles.

_His_ daughter? _Kurt's_ daughter?

_Her_ daughter's small body squirms gently in her arms, the yowling pink face, the folded, wiry limbs burning something in her, something bright. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful—

Hers. _Her_ daughter. Weeks and weeks of waiting, of talking and planning and thinking and dreaming… of life stirring within her, of nocturnal soliloquies spoken for the benefit of tiny, unformed ears.

All this time, and now here she is – Olivia's family. And if there's one thing Olivia's learned about herself from her years with Elliot, it's that she's not fond of sharing.

When she finally speaks, her words are ironclad.

"I've seen him eleven times since he found out I was pregnant," she states through clenched teeth.

"He's here now. He's been asking the nurses for updates all night."

"He sure has," Tia mutters.

Olivia scowls. "Even _she_ thinks he's annoying."

"He's her father," Elliot rejoins, his voice slow and still and even. She hates it, Really Fucking Hates It, when he talks to her like this, like he knows that the truth is on his side and therefore refuses to exert any additional effort into arguing because of course, of _course_ he's always right.

"I don't need a biology lesson, Elliot."

"Do you want to just let me know later?" Tia asks.

"No," Olivia says sharply.

At the same time Elliot says, "Yeah, thanks."

Her jaw clenches. "Take the bracelet."

"I don't—"

"Elliot, take the damn bracelet!"

He stares at her defiantly, resistant and silent and infuriating and _dammit, _why is he choosing now to prove a point?

"Is this where you want an out?" she hisses. "Because if _now_ is when you decide you're not up for this—" she waves her free hand between them. "—whatever this is, then fine. Go."

His eyes narrow. "The hell—?"

"But don't sit here and lecture me about _that_ _man's_ parental rights. If you're _staying_," she continues. "Then shut up and take. the. damn. bracelet."

He glares at her.

She glares back.

Tia stands to the side, shifting impatiently.

After several seconds and without breaking eye contact, Elliot slowly unfurls his arm, and Tia hurries to fasten the ID band like he's about to strike.

His jaw is still set as he stares at his newly-adorned wrist, a thoughtful frown on his face.

"There," Olivia says, her smile tinged with honey and venom. "That wasn't so hard, now, was it?"

"We'll talk about this later," he says quietly.

Olivia ignores him; the bundle in her arms squirms and Tia – no doubt in an attempt to regain familiar ground – directs their attention to something new. "She's hungry," she notes approvingly. "You ready to feed her?"

Olivia hesitates. "Yeah. But… um, I'm not sure. Do I just--?"

"Here, I'll help you." Tia glances at Elliot. "You can step out, if you're uncomfortable."

She and Olivia both jump as Elliot barks out a sharp laugh.

"I'd like to see me try," he says dryly, holding up his newly-adorned wrist.

Tia chuckles. "Oh, I think you're in it, now."

He huffs a laugh, but he's not looking at Tia anymore. Olivia feels his gaze before meeting it with her own, and what she sees there causes her head to spin, adrift in terror and relief.

"Do you have a name?" Tia asks. "We gotta have something to call that beautiful baby."

'Beautiful' doesn't do this flawless child justice, but Olivia lets that one slip.

"Yeah," she murmurs, her eyes on that tiny, perfect frown. "I'm naming her Sophia."

Tia nods. "I love it. What about a middle name?"

Olivia smiles, and her cheeks are damp and cracking from her grin but she just can't find it within herself to care. Something is stirring, standing, rippling and rising through her, drenching her bones and slipping through her skin – her heart has unfurled and the something—the burning something has a name.

"Joy."

*

Sophia Joy, she thinks. Joy, joy, joy.

After two awkward attempts at nursing, Olivia is basking in the discovery that her breasts are no longer merely ornamental. This discovery bodes well for her confidence – maybe she can do this, after all.

Sophia is sleeping quietly on Olivia's chest as Elliot bends over them both, one long, calloused finger tracing the peach-pink curve of Sophia's face. He's close enough for Olivia to feel his breath on her cheek, for her to breathe in the heady, comforting scent of him; that scent, when combined with the clean, soft smells of the baby, is the best thing she's ever smelled.

For the first time in years, she is safe.

"She's gorgeous," Elliot says quietly. Murmuring her agreement, Olivia turns her head—

-- and finds herself mere inches away from Elliot's face. She stares into bloodshot blue eyes, noting the way his stubble-laden jaw tightens in her periphery.

They haven't touched each other in weeks, and of course she'd noticed, but there was always too much between them, too many things undecided or unspoken, and she's past the point of fooling around with her partner. She's pretty sure he is, too.

And maybe _that's _the reason for the platonic companionship, the innocent dates, the separate sleeping arrangements, she muses, noting the thick fringe of lashes around the blue of her mother's ocean. Want is no longer the core of it all, of the rapid thumping of her heart as his breath washes over her now-parted lips—it's there, though, waiting. But something else has happened, and if she just leans forward… just the slightest bit…

Then this will be permanent, for her.

The thought slams into her like a wrecking ball and she blinks rapidly, losing focus. She knows the exact moment Elliot notices; he sighs and straightens.

"I'm going back to the apartment for a few minutes," he rasps. "I smell like pool water."

Still dazed by her revelation, she nods slowly.

"Do you want me to bring anything back?" he asks.

"No… um. I don't know. John brought my bag—" she clears her throat nervously. "No. Thanks."

"I'll be back soon," he says. "Call me if you need anything."

She nods, wondering if she'll ever be okay with the way he disappears through doorways.

*

"'Sophia Joy?'" Kurt repeats incredulously.

Olivia scowls over her paperwork, wishing for the seventh time that Kurt would shut up, hunker down and help her with the damn hospital forms. What was this man _good_ for, anyway? "Yes," she replies shortly. She will not murder him on her daughter's birthday. She won't.

She Won't.

He nods. "Oh."

Her eyebrow cocks as she continues filling in the line marked 'social security number.' "'Oh?' The hell does that mean?"

"Nothing." His throat clears repetitively, shot-guns and staccato notes; the sound is annoying. "Were you… was I going to—"

Maybe she will.

His pause hangs suspended in the air like a mobile of thwarted assumptions. She puts down her pen and turns to him. "'Were you going to'…? What, you don't like it?"

Kurt looks at her thoughtfully, a small frown deepening the small lines between his eyebrows as he scrutinizes her face. After several seconds, he sighs.

"What?" she asks shortly.

"I love the name. It's just-- you… wow. You _really_ don't want me here, do you?"

Kurt's hesitation and obvious discomfort make her remember Elliot's words; she hears his lecture echo in her mind and sighs.

He's her father, Elliot had reminded her pointedly, but 'father' hasn't ever been a very valuable or relevant concept to her and she's managed just fine without one, thank you very much. And her daughter… well, her daughter doesn't need this dumbass hanging around.

There are many ways to make a family, she tells herself again.

"I don't know," she says plainly. "At this point I don't know if I want you as involved—"

"That's bullshit, Olivia," he says quietly, his face tense with frustration. "Look, when you told me? I reacted badly, I know that. I wasn't there for you, and I know that too, but—but—_Jesus_, Olivia. You can't just—you can't just make some kind of unilateral decision about raising _our _daught—"

She _will_ murder him, birthday or no. What Sophia doesn't know…

"_Our _daughter?" _She_ can feel her temper rising, quicksilver and hot, burning up her nerves as it touches her skin. "What do you want, Kurt?" she hisses. "You want me to feel bad for you?"

"I want you to just—shit, you didn't get pregnant by yourself," he rejoins. "She isn't just _yours_—"

"The hell she isn't! I _was_ pregnant by myself. Who do you think—"

"Yeah, Olivia, I get it. I get that you're a poor, longsuffering saint and I'm the asshole who knocked you up and bolted. I get that you think I'm an ass, and I'm pretty sure you wish _Sophia_ had a different dad." He gestures to Elliot's empty hospital chair. "That's fine. But I'm here now, and I'm trying, and that's gotta count for something. All I'm asking is for you to consider letting me help you. Being a parent isn't easy—"

"Don't lecture me. I _know_ being a parent isn't easy. But I've seen women who manage just fine, even after cutting off the father's parental rights. I'm perfectly capable--"

"Those guys are murderers. Child molesters. Rapists. Guys who actually did something worse than not knowing how to take the news that the woman he'd been seeing for _eight weeks_—"

"You asked me for a paternity test!" she yells, mentally willing Elliot to crash through the door and kick Kurt's ass. She'd do it herself if the whole damn lower half of her body wasn't so fucking sore.

"We barely knew each other. I _still_ don't know you, but guess whose fault that is?" he yells back before stepping closer, his voice dropping to a low rumble. "I've tried, Olivia. I'm still trying. I'm trying to make sure this kid isn't going to grow up thinking I don't give a shit, and you're too worried about playing house—"

"_What?"_

"—to even give me a chance."

Fuck.

"What's going on in here?"

Kurt and Olivia both start, their heads swiveling to stare at the perturbed-looking nurse in the doorway.

"Uh… we were talking…" Kurt mumbles.

"No more yelling," she says sharply. "Or I'll ask you to leave."

Kurt nods. "Of course… of course."

Olivia narrows her eyes at him. Ass.

The door closes, and he looks back at her.

Her chest is still heaving with fury, keeping cadence with the clock as they glare at each other from across her hospital room; after several long moments, Kurt is the first to look away.

"I'm not doing this with you," he mutters. "You're not getting rid of me that easily." With a sigh, he reaches into his pocket, withdrawing a folded piece of paper. He lays it on the table by her bed. "Here's my info; I wrote it out for you while I was waiting this morning." He runs his hand through his hair and opens his mouth before heaving a sigh. "I'm going for a walk."

And then he does.

*

Sophia Joy.

The name echoes in her brain like the tolling of a light bell.

Moonlight streams in through the open blinds, a shaft of silver falling across Elliot's sleeping forms, her own legs, and the hospital bassinet beside her. Her exhausted, beleaguered partner has crammed his long form onto the two-cushion hospital couch, limbs akimbo as he unconsciously fits himself to the cramped space. He'd spent most of the day by her side, leaving only once in some fucked-up deference to Kurt's right to privately meet Baby Sophia. Fresh from a shave and shower, Elliot had smirked through the awkwardness that was John and Fin Attempting to Fawn Over A Newborn, remained silent as Dr. Patel talked her through her post-natal care, and had finally collapsed onto his makeshift bed at the first sign of nightfall.

"Are you okay to sleep on that thing?" she'd asked, frowning.

"Can sleep anywhere," he'd mumbled into the hospital pillow. "Marine…" And he was gone.

His snoring now fills the room in a rumbling cadence, a soothing backdrop to her thoughts as she rolls to her side to face the bassinet. She stares, fascinated, at the rapid rise and fall of her daughter's tiny chest, at the scrawny limbs encased in cotton… and her mind wanders into a fuzzy sort of darkness.

At the sound of waves, she opens her eyes.

Serena smiles at her. "Hello."

"I had a baby," Olivia blurts. "A girl."

"Congratulations," her mother says, her expression benign. "And what did you name her?"

"Sophia Joy."

"'_With wisdom's joy and reason's care_,'" Serena quotes in reply. "Joanna Baillie."

Olivia nods, appreciating both the quote and the effect of the breeze as it lifts the ends of her mother's hair, pulling it away and back from Serena's face. "'Sophia' is Greek. It means wisdom. I'll probably shorten it to Sophie."

"It's a strong name," Serena sighs. "And it gives her good goals, I think."

"To be wise? I think so. It's better than mine, anyway. No offense."

"Oh?" Serena asks, arching a delicate brow. "And what, pray tell, is wrong with your name?"

"'Olivia' means 'olive tree,' Ma. Not a whole lot to work with."

"Shakespeare didn't think so," Serena retorts.

"Don't hide behind _Twelfth Night_."

"The olive tree is a symbol of beauty, dignity and fruitfulness."

Olivia shrugs. "Well, I wanted my fruit to have a less-obscure meaning behind her name."

Her mother hums absently. "It's a beautiful name. '_May she be granted beauty and yet not_

_Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught_…"

The day before, Olivia could have sat with her mother for hours, quoting old poems and reveling in the way her good memories washed over her, bathing her mind in a warm, golden haze. She could have been still, been content. She could have enjoyed this version of her mother. She could have pretended.

The problem is, now her body is filled with echoes, shadows and ghosts of her daughter's presence within her – here, those echoes that can't be assuaged by holding Sophia in her arms. Olivia had no concept of how much she would miss that little body, growing and stretching inside, but now she is empty, and no amount of poetry or azure, cloudless skies will tamp down the sudden, urgent ache she has to hold her baby girl.

"Why have we only talked about poetry?" she asks suddenly.

Unperturbed, her mother shrugs. "I told you already."

"'Because it's lovely?' Is that it? Why else?"

"Do you really need another reason? Or would you like to talk about something else?" Serena asks with a small smile.

"What else can we talk about?"

"We can talk about whatever you'd like."

"Oh."

Well… that was easier than she'd expected.

"Do you remember," Serena murmurs, "when you went next door to sleep at Ms. Flannigan's? You were, let me think, you were only six or seven at the time, I believe."

Clouds appear overhead with the memory, grey and distant, and she feels a sudden chill as it brushes goosebumps along her arms. "I remember," Olivia replies flatly.

"I woke up in the kitchen," her mother continues. "It was almost five in the morning, and there I was, sleeping on the kitchen table, and I—" she starts to laugh. "And I had no idea where my daughter was."

"I burnt my hand that night," Olivia says after a moment. "You left the skillet on."

"Yes," her mother says, her expression wistful as she tilts her elegant neck, her face upturned towards a darkening sky. The breeze continues to play in her hair, dancing merrily, erratically around her head. "Storm's coming," she announces softly.

Olivia frowns. "Why did you ask if I remembered that?"

"Because you were tired of poetry," Serena sighs. "And I'm afraid, my dear, that poetry is the only lovely thing I have. Do you remember now?"

"Do I remember what?" Olivia asks, biting back her frustration.

Her mother sighs again; the wind picks up in sympathy as rolling, angry clouds gather above. Santorini blue is now silvers, whites and greys. "Our poetry, Libby."

Libby scowls; a clap of thunder sounds overhead. The waves are higher, rougher, whiter; there is water in the boat. "Yes, I read to you from your Anthology. It helped your headaches."

"Libby," Serena laughs. A spray of water splashes her, saltwater soaking her side. "The sound of a child struggling with the meters of classical poetry is not what many consider to be a soothing hangover remedy."

"What?" A flash of lightening, another thunderous boom. Their rowboat balances precariously on the edges of a hundred waves, its planks saturated in the froth of an angry sea.

Her mother sits, relaxed and smiling, still facing the sky. The wind whips her wet hair in angry lashes around her peaceful face. In the midst of the storm, Serena is living up to her name.

"You'll remember, I suppose," she sighs. "In the meantime—"

"I'll remember _what_?"

"--I think it's time I crossed the bar."

Vague echoes of Tennyson bubble up through the froth of swelling waves as Olivia's fingers clutch the sides of the rocking boat. Serena's hands remain in her own lap.

_But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam…_

The world begins to tip on its side--

"Mom—"

…_When that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home…._

Serena's whisper is all she can hear above the rush of waves and the almost-silent rolling of a capsizing boat.

"Do you remember?"

*

"Olivia?"

Her eyes open slowly, slowly to the silence and silver-white of moonbeams through a hospital window. Her limbs feel disjointed and heavy.

"Liv?"

She turns her head on the pillow, and her bleary gaze meets Elliot's. "Hey," she whispers.

"You're talking in your sleep."

"Sorry."

"Don't be," he yawns, lying back down. He's asleep within seconds.

Olivia turns back to Sophie's bassinet. Serena's words are still echoing in her head.

_Do you remember?_

Remember what? she thinks again.

Their poetry, Serena had told her.

_Dream _Serena, her mind cautions. Her mother had loved poetry, true—but it's highly unlikely she appeared in a beyond-the-grave dinghy just to discuss the merits of Tennyson versus his contemporaries.

But, dream or not, _something_ is there, pushing and prodding, awakening the details of long-dormant memories. Saturday mornings and old book smell of the worn Anthology… the crinkle of Serena's eyes during a rare burst of laughter… the last lines of a lullaby, whispered into the dark.

She tries to remember more, clinging to the bones of past happiness; Elliot's snores eventually lull her into slumber. She does not dream.

*

**A/N: **

**I read each and every one of your reviews, and I've been better about replying to them. Your thoughts and comments are really, truly appreciated as this story begins to wind down…**

**You guys are the best. Thank you for reading!**

**Poems referenced in this chapter:**

_**Hope and Memory**_**, Joanna Baillie**

_**A Prayer For My Daughter**_**, William Butler Yeats**

_**Crossing the Bar**_**, Alfred, Lord Tennyson**


	50. Patronus

Author's Chapter Notes:

**Sorry for the wait. Thanks to Jess for her kick-ass beta skills...**

_**Patronus,**_**like the rest of the chapters, is Latin. It refers to a protector or advocate.**

Expectations – she's had them.

She'd expected a longer hospital stay.

She'd expected her dreams about her mother to make sense once she was awake.

She'd expected to fit into her pre-maternity jeans; she'd been relatively active during her pregnancy and had heard of a woman in Casey's office who'd been able to slip effortlessly from her hospital gown and into her old pants. Skinny bitch.

She'd expected Simon to return her call; she'd left him a brief message covering the basics of Sophia's entrance into the world but hasn't heard back.

She'd expected some sort of mothering manual from the hospital staff.

She'd expected some sort of parenting pep talk from Elliot.

She'd expected Kurt to stay out of the way and not purchase a brand-new baby carrier.

She'd expected to have some clue about what the fuck she was doing.

Once again, her expectations are off the mark, only instead of highlighting the transcendence of her new situation, they underline the blank spaces – the unknown, the uncertain, and the insecurities that live between her lungs.

Bold and bruising, the weight of a shadow looms over her happiness, threatening to blot out the bright flecks of joy that now color her consciousness.

You're in over your head, the shadow taunts… it sounds suspiciously like Serena.

*

She stares blankly at her own reflection, the city passing by behind the transposition of her face in the passenger side window.

The problem with artists, she muses as they drive by a young man with an easel drawing caricatures on a street corner, is that they can birth beautiful things and then abandon them to the wayside.

Creators are not necessarily caretakers.

"You're quiet," Elliot observes.

Several seconds pass before she remembers his prompt.

"Just thinking," she replies.

They're at a red light three blocks from her apartment when she catches sight of a blond woman and her little girl crossing in front of Elliot's car. The woman's fingers are wrapped securely around the child's wrist and they hurry past, a glimpse of a future and a past.

Olivia frowns. Somewhere within, a proverbial lightbulb begins to flicker, dim and shine.

*

She'd expected everything to be different.

She'd expected the ring of warmth that had been ignited by the sight of her daughter to expand, to automatically color everything around them, to change the way the world looked, but everything looks the same and Elliot doesn't seem to notice. He opens the door to her apartment and strolls in, apparently unaffected by her silence or the melancholy that she feels, clinging to her shoulders and dimming the atmosphere.

Sophia gurgles quietly from her carrier and Olivia marvels at how the sound makes her feel simultaneously lighter and heavier, her body fighting the elation of motherhood and the weight of some dark, nameless guilt pulling her down, down down…

It's the walls, Olivia realizes. The walls are the problem.

They stare back at her, bland and blank, the whiteness a stark contrast to the dark of the furniture. Her apartment is the way she'd left it four days prior, the couch strewn with Elliot's pillows and a Pottery Barn throw, her jacket lying haphazardly across the chair, a browned apple core sitting atop the coffee table. Afternoon sunlight streams in through the windows, highlighting dust particles and her dirty floor.

This place is a mess, she thinks.

"What?"

She's spoken aloud without realizing, her filter is shot to hell and she can see Elliot continuing to operate normally outside of her breakdown, dropping her overnight bag and setting Sophia's carrier on the coffee table next to that rotten apple. Can he do that? she wonders frantically. Can children just be placed somewhere like they're a stack of mail? She doesn't know. She has no concept of the Little Do's and Don'ts of Motherhood, like how to not place your newborn next to a piece of trash in your living room, or how to keep her from toppling out of the carrier and down a floor vent in the event of an earthquake or – God forbid – how to prevent Sophia from falling out the window. Can babies be near windows? Glass can break so easily, she's seen how contractors get around building codes and it's never occurred to her before just how easily some rare baby-eating bird of prey, the kind that nests in the craggy silhouettes of skyscrapers, could easily swoop down into her apartment and now Elliot is looking at her with his eyebrows about an inch higher than they need to be—

"Olivia."

She needs him to shut up, to give her a minute, to give her an hour before he leaves her alone in this filthy apartment with her tiny, perfect, helpless daughter who is, at this very moment, breathing in said dust particles and other molecular menaces that have been living in her bachelorette pad for years and she can't remember what Tia told her about newborns and immune systems and antibodies but surely this, this will prove to be too much and her baby, her perfect baby, is going to have some version of the black lung before she even gets to walk—

"Olivia."

She doesn't realize her eyes are closed until they snap open at the sound of Elliot's voice. His eyebrows are about to climb right off his forehead and he's staring at her like she's crazy, but maybe she is for even daring to think she can do this, this whole being left alone with a small human being whose only means of survival is… her.

"Liv… you're scaring me."

She's staring at him now, and blink dammit, she commands her eyelids, do something other than freak Elliot out because he hates it when you stare like this, when you get inside your head and start watching the world burn but he shouldn't freak out because she's fine, she's fine she's fine she's fineshe'sfineshe'sfine—

"Elliot," she croaks, and her eyes widen at a familiar clenching in her torso.

He's across the room in four long steps, arms out like he's ready to catch her if she falls but falling isn't the problem, nothing is falling and everything is rising, lifting and flying, ascending from her middle and into her throat and she tries to talk to him with various coded blinks and if she could just move her lips to tell him she's fine, it's all fine—

"What's wrong?"

Her heartbeat goes the way of the hummingbird, thrumming and flying as Elliot pulls her to the couch, rubbing her arms and shushing her with calm, warm words. He sits on the coffee table, and the combined presence of his ass and the baby carrier cause magazines, baby books and a newspaper to crash onto the floor.

The panic attack assumes full control, and she can't stop thinking of the books on the floor, of how they've made yet another mess in an apartment as unfit for a child as she is.

*

She remembers the swell of the ocean, its waves cajoling and caressing skinny legs, knobby knees and a chest too flat for a bra. Saltwater soaked her hair, slid into her eyes and mouth, droplets dripping and dodging into the crevices of her face. The sun beat down, streaming and shining, and she could feel the telltale tenderness of sunburn creep across her nose.

The world seemed inconceivably huge as she kicked and pumped her arms in a steady, treading motion, a speck of flesh in a vast sea. Squinting against the sunshine, she gazed out over the Lower Bay, trying to spot a visible marker that could tell her where New York and New Jersey waters met.

Push and pull, and push again. The water pulsed softly around her and she was no longer Olivia Benson, soon-to-be eighth grader at P.S. 265; she was myth, she was mermaid, she was something aquatically inclined, enchanting and weightless. Worry-free.

She could hear Serena's voice in her head as it softly recited "The Great Selkie o' Suleskerry," her normal Yankee twang softened with the lilt of the Orkey Islands.

_The silkie be a creature strange_

_He rises from the sea to change_

_Into a man, a weird one he,_

_When home it is in Skule Skerrie. _

She wondered what it would be like to escape into the boundless depths of the Atlantic, to leave behind the broken smirk of her mother and just… be.

But the tide had other ideas, and she soon found herself carried toward the shoreline by a sneaker wave before reluctantly conceding to reality and swimming the rest of the way.

She's never forgotten the feeling of the push, the pull, the swell underneath as a larger force carries and crashes. She remembers feeling untenably small, deposited against her will in the shallows of the sea. She used to dream of disappearing in a swirl of saltwater.

Now she desperately grasps for the shallows.

*

To calm her, Elliot has resorted to dredging up universally soothing feminine clichés; sounds of Oprah wash over her from the living room as she stares at Sophia's cupid-bow lips.

After reminding her how to breathe, Elliot has been showcasing his domestic skills by depositing her onto her bed with cool rag on her forehead, a bottle of water on her left and Sophia to her right. The ceiling fan whirs quietly on low as she folds her arm underneath her head and contemplates her homecoming.

I can't do this, she whimpers mentally.

Enough of this, her inner lioness argues. You're pussying out. Stop it.

Sophia is helpless. She has nobody to look out for her if I fuck this up—

You're looking out for her, Lioness growls.

And that, she reflects with a frown, is the problem.

"Feeling better?"

She looks up to see Elliot leaning in the doorway, his lips curved into a small, tired smirk.

"I feel great," she says weakly.

"You need some Tylenol or anything? You know, for the…" he gestures awkwardly around his lower body. "…discomfort?"

"No."

The ceiling fan continues its cycle, the quiet hum soothing her nerves. In the living room, Oprah declares something to be fabulous.

"I'm gonna get something for us to eat," Elliot says after a moment. "You hungry?"

Her stomach bunches at the thought of food and she shakes her head, tracing Sophia's forearm with her index finger. "I'm good."

She watches Elliot's eyes follow her hand, sees as they soften almost imperceptibly as he watches Sophie sleep. A whisper of Emily Dickinson's words in her mother's voice tickle the base of her skull and she scowls. Hope with feathers has never made sense to her.

"How's she doing?" he asks quietly.

Sophie's sleeping, and Olivia figures that probably means that everything's fine. So she shrugs. Elliot smiles again, only this time he looks mildly amused by something. Olivia almost asks him what's so funny – she could use the laugh.

"You know, you're doing great."

Her eyes snap up to meet his, looking for signs of jest or sarcasm. She finds none. "Right," she snorts. "That panic attack really showcased my maternal instincts."

"She's been home for three whole hours without incident," he shrugs, grinning. "That's three-for-three, far as I'm concerned."

"Glad you think all this is funny," she mutters crankily. "I'll remember your vote of confidence when I'm trying to remember how to keep her alive."

"Relax. Kids are way more durable than you think."

Why is it, she wonders, that Dad Elliot is either overwhelmingly endearing or super-annoying? He's such a know-it-all. "Right," she says again.

"I'm serious."

She rolls her eyes.

"Olivia, you're great with kids and you know it."

"Yeah, other's people's kids. Older kids." She sighs. "This is different."

"She's yours," he nods. "It's different."

"It's just… I just can't think," she confesses, cringing at the whiny inflection in her voice. "I can't… I don't know if I can do this alone."

"Camping out on your bed and trying to figure out ways to keep her in a bubble her whole life isn't going to make you a better mother."

"It couldn't make me a worse one."

"Bullshit. Your mom did it by herself."

His casual mention of Serena strikes a nerve; she flinches. "I'm not my mother."

"Didn't say you were," he says easily, crossing the room and kneeling at the side of her bed. She watches as he caresses the curve of Sophie's cheek with a long, callused finger. "She wasn't perfect, but your mother could have done a lot worse. Look how you turned out."

"My mother wasn't well, Elliot," she murmurs. "I don't… I don't really have any kind of example to follow."

"Yeah? Who does?" he asks dryly. "You know, one time, when Maureen was about ten months, I set her on her bed while I grabbed some clothes out of the dresser for her. She wasn't a big mover at the time, but…" he shakes his head, his eyes fixed on Sophie. "I turned my back for one second – just a second – and I turn around just in time to see her fall off the bed and crack her head on the floor." Olivia can feel her eyes widen in horror as he chuckles. "I bet I called ten different pediatricians to see what I was supposed to do."

"What did Kathy say?"

"We were pretty shaken up. But Maureen—she's always had a head like a rock. She was fine. And if this one's anything like her mother," he smirks, nodding at Sophie, "I think we can cross 'head trauma' off the list of concerns."

"Funny."

He nods, and his small grin makes her feel almost normal. "I do what I can. You hungry yet?"

She nods thoughtfully and Elliot stands; her eyes leave Sophie's sleeping form long enough to watch the strong, straight lines of his back as he leaves her bedroom.

*

She dreams, but not of water.

The sights and sounds and smells of Manhattan on a Saturday assault her senses and she looks up and to both sides, her five-year-old eyes straining to take it all in. Everything is bigger, brighter, louder as she hurries along on her chubby childhood legs. A hot dog vendor smiles at her and she slows, only to feel the warmth of slim, smooth fingers tighten around her hand.

"Keep up, Olivia," Serena commands.

"Mommy, I want a hot dog."

"You just ate."

"I'm hungry."

"You're not hungry. Hunger is the absence of food in your stomach, and you ate pizza not an hour ago."

"I want a hot dog."

"Don't whine."

Serena's grip is relentless, as is the pace of her heels as the clack along the sidewalk. Her trench coat floats slightly behind her, brushing Olivia's knees as she double-times her stride to keep up. The hot dogs smell too good to be true and she feels herself pouting with disappointment.

"I want a hot dog."

Her mother ignores her, her face stoically blank as they come to a stop at the crosswalk. Olivia swings her mother's arm, pulling, pulling, pulling…

"Olivia," her mother hisses. "Hold still."

"I want a hot dog," she whines.

"Oh dear god," Serena breathes. "I just fucking fed you."

"Is she your daughter?" a heavy-set woman to the right of them asks. Olivia is just cognizant enough of life beyond the hot dog stand to see Serena's eyes narrow at the intrusion.

"I'm her mother," she says stiffly. "Mind your own business."

"Mommy," Olivia whines.

"I don't think it's appropriate to speak to a child that way," the woman continues. "Especially your—"

"Mind your own fucking business!" Serena yells.

"Easy, lady," someone else says. Olivia can't see him.

The crosswalk light turns.

The masses push forward.

Olivia pulls back, feeling a rush of excitement as her small, sweaty hand slips from her mother's. Her hot dog is yards away and she makes a dash for it, small legs pumping her closer and closer to the man with the smile and heaven in a bun.

Almost…

She is feet away from the vendor, her getaway made to the cacophony of honking horns and squealing brakes, to the deafening sounds of the city… but none of them drown out the shrill panic of her mother's voice.

"Olivia!"

Olivia freezes and turns in time to see Serena bearing down on her, eyes wide and sharp and gleaming with something frantic, something familiar. Her manicured hand stretches forward, reaching and open, seeking purchase and finding it as she grabs Olivia's wrist.

"Don't you ever," she hisses. "Don't you ever do that to me again! Do you understand me?"

Olivia's limbs are frozen still, but something changes anyway and her mother's face shifts, or maybe Olivia's shifting, she can't tell, but then all of a sudden she stands tall, showing off the five inches she'd gained on Serena through adulthood.

"Do you understand me?"

Adult Olivia nods dumbly as Serena pants with fury. "Please let go of my wrist," she whispers.

Serena opens her mouth to answer, but the only sound that emerges is the shrill wail of a crying newborn.

*

"You okay?" Elliot asks groggily, his frame crowding the doorway. She glances at him with bleary eyes and shifts on the bed, cringing as Sophia's toothless gums clamp onto her a bit tighter than before.

"Go back to sleep, El. We're fine."

A mumble, a shuffling of feet, and Elliot's snoring resumes. Sophie drinks her fill and Olivia desperately tries to remember the word that eludes her fuzzy consciousness, the name of the emotion that had filled Serena's eyes that day on the sidewalk. She feels a small tug at her synapses and she frowns thoughtfully, attempting to capture the thought in the back of her mind—

Minutes later, she lays Sophie down in her bassinet and collapses back into her own bed. She's wavering between waking and dreaming when Serena's voice whispers something into her brain.

Fear.

Days pass.

Elliot comes. Elliot goes.

Sophia sleeps. Sophia cries.

Olivia remembers coming home at night and prying boots off swollen feet. Those same boots – her pavement pounders – have been sitting by the door for almost three months, long since abandoned for shoes that were friendlier to tired, pregnant feet.

She was a force to be reckoned with. A girl with a gun, a bitch with a badge. She could stare down a monster without wavering, without blinking. She's made rapists cry uncle.

The apartment is cleaner than it's ever been, thanks to the nervous energy that takes over her body while the baby sleeps. Cleaning cleanses more than her surroundings; it's one of the few tasks she can complete at home without feeling criminally inadequate.

She thinks of Serena, of raising a child with foreign eyes and coloring, a child with her father's face. She thinks of Kurt, how he must have put an alert on his phone to call her; he leaves a voicemail twice a day.

She thinks of John and Fin, of what they're working on, and pathetically wondering if they've ever talked about visiting her. It would be awkward and inconvenient, but it would be something.

She thinks of Elliot, of his rushed goodbyes in the morning and the way he eases the front door shut late at night when he thinks she's sleeping. She thinks of how he looks at Sophia with unbridled affection, of how his large hands can cradle her daughter with infinite care. She thinks of how those same hands have touched her in the past. She thinks of those hands rolling up his sleeves in the interrogation room, of his fingers henpecking at the keyboard for his reports. She thinks of how those hands see the city every day, while she sits in her apartment, charged solely with the care of another human being.

She thinks of loneliness, wondering why it's at its worst when she cooks for two.

It happens on a sunny Friday morning.

Breastfeeding is never extremely comfortable, although she's become accustomed to the abrupt tugging on her nipple; Sophia is a feeder, and today is no exception. Olivia absently watches Wendy Williams interview another D-list celebrity, unconsciously listening to the soft sucking sounds from her daughter.

Wendy's laugh brays from the television… and the nursing sounds stop.

Olivia glances down, freezing in horror as Sophie's tiny body jerks with the force of her coughing. The tiny face is crimson and purple after a few seconds–

Time stops.

And then she is in slow motion, her brain kicking into overdrive as her synapses fire, the information for infant CPR shooting through her neural pathways as her arms flex and prepare to flip Sophie onto her arm–

And then, as soon as it began, it's over. Sophie breathes for a few seconds before her rosebud mouth opens and closes, seeking Olivia's breast.

The whole ordeal takes less than fifteen seconds.

Sophie continues to nurse as Olivia sits, stunned and resplendent in the newfound realization that maybe, just maybe, this mothering thing isn't wholly beyond her.

Elliot comes back Saturday morning, his face streaked with the pale skin and purple shadows of fatigue. He needs to shave.

"Rough night?" she asks from her place on the couch, the baby in her arms. Sophie's face has begun to crinkle in what Olivia suspects are the early stages of a smile.

"The worst," he mutters, flopping down beside her.

"You wanna talk about it?"

He sighs. "Not really. You good?"

She smiles – really smiles – for the first time in what feels like years. In her lap, Sophie's open, gaping grin stretches across her face. "We're great," she replies quietly.

Elliot is asleep in seconds.

We're great, echo the words in her head. We're great.

She means it.

Chapter End Notes:

**Reviews make this train go... I would have given up long ago had it not been for your support and encouragement. Thank you!**

Check out the poem quoted in this chapter... it's a neat little ballad.


	51. Omne ignotum pro magnifico est

Author's Chapter Notes:

_**THIS STORY IS RATED M FOR A REASON!**_****

It's been awhile, yes? I apologize, truly, for your wait. Between life and writer's block, there was no way to write the last few chapters the way I wanted to write it for a good while. Fortunately, the words have since come.

Here they are.

_**Omne ignotum pro magnifico est – We have great notions of everything unknown**_

She was eleven years old when Tommy Pfannkoch started giving her trouble.

"I like you," he'd told her on a Friday afternoon as they walked to the subway. She hadn't blushed or blinked… but they'd held hands for almost five whole minutes.

Two days later, her world fell apart.

"Girls are gross," he announced to his friends after school. He'd looked her right in the eye as he said it. After three well-placed kicks to Tommy's lower body, Olivia had walked away with a head held high and eyes welling over with the tears of She Who Has Avenged Her Pride.

"He's probably a gay," Serena announced that night before bed, her statement complete with an obscene hand gesture. "Don't let him get to you."

Two grade school altercations later, it was clear that Olivia was having a hard time taking her mother's advice.

As Olivia sat in front of the principal's office, poker straight and poker faced, her heart beating a million miles a minute, she focused on Serena's reaction to the news that her daughter had shoved a boy into the Girls' Room.

She'd never been in trouble. She hoped that would work to her favor.

"Pst! Benson!" Tommy hissed from the bench across from her, interrupting her desperate strategizing.

"We're not allowed to talk," she replied sullenly.

"Yeah, well girls like you… all you do is talk. Figures you'll do anything you're told. My dad says your mom's a lousy drunk and makes you clean house and buy groceries."

"At least my mom doesn't make eyes at Puerto Rican mechanics," she hissed.

When buying of auto parts, Mrs. Pfannkoch had a reputation for enjoying a discount or two.

"Shut up or I'll tell… I'll say that you told us all how your mom's a wino."

"My mom's not a wino!"

Which, to her knowledge, had been true; Serena was not a fan of wine.

The authoritative tapping of heels echoed from down the hallway, announcing the arrival of the wino in question. Serena, resplendent in work clothes and trench coat, came around the corner in full sail, her eyes sharply assessing the situation.

"Tommy," she greeted coldly. Olivia fought the urge to laugh at the boy's uncomfortable squirming; Serena was good at glaring.

Apparently, the glare worked on Principal Brewster as well as it had worked on Tommy Pfannkoch; Olivia walked out of the office with nothing more than a kind warning not to talk to boys who had nothing nice to say.

"Although," Serena remarked dryly as they crossed the street for the subway. "I would submit that Mr. Brewster's directive can be amended to 'Don't Talk to Boys, Period.'"

Olivia frowned. "What about friends?"

"Libby, boys can't be friends. They can't be friends, they can't be boyfriends, and they sure as hell can't be fathers."

"Why?"

"Well, boys are well enough, I suppose," she mused thoughtfully. "It's when they grow up to be men that the troubles start. You, Libby, are going to have to learn how to deal with your little boyfriends when they turn into pushy, overbearing men. 'Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot.' It's better not to bother."

"But what about Jack or Danny?" Olivia protested. "Or any of the other boys who are nice to me?"

There, at the Bedford Ave subway, Serena bent down, her grey eyes searching and sharp. "Listen to me, Olivia. Boys want one thing, and they'll get it from you anyway they can. Stay away from them."

"But what about friends?" she asked again.

Serena stood with an exasperated sigh, grabbing Olivia's hand and continuing down the stairs to the subway.

"You don't need that many friends. You don't need anyone, really. After a few years you just... learn to let them all go."

Olivia never knew what her mother had told Principal Brewster, but Tommy Pfannkoch never looked directly at her again.

***

"Pregnancy, motherhood, kids… it all changes you," some simpering blond actress on "The View" proclaims. "It's so profound."

As much as it chagrins Olivia to admit it, Dumb Actress is right. She can't shake off the feeling that she's been taken over by some extremely maternal alien virus. A virus that weighs roughly twenty pounds and makes her eyes and breasts leak.

Tight pants, crying jags and nursing bras be damned, her daughter has given her no regrets.

***

"How's she been?" Elliot asks, throwing his jacket across a kitchen chair. He swipes a beer from her fridge before moving into the living room to flop beside her on the couch.

"She cried. All day. Anything happen at work?"

He shrugs, reaching for Sophie. "The usual."

"Perverts, perps and paperwork?" she asks.

He smirks. "Good one."

"Thanks. I've got a lot of good ones. Must be because the only conversations I have are with myself."

Elliot hums absently, brushing wisps of Sophie's hair back from her forehead. "Does she feel hot to you?" He lifts Sophie over to Olivia. "Feel her."

She does. "I know. She's still a little warm… I took her temp earlier, though. She should be fine."

"Should we take it again?"

"I just did it."

He shrugs. "Couldn't hurt."

"You think her temperature went from ninety-seven to a fever in the last fifteen minutes?"

"It could explain why she's been crying."

"She's tired. She took a twenty-minute nap today."

He sighs. "You want me to do it? Where's the thermometer?"

"No, Elliot, I don't want you to take her temperature again. Trust me."

"If she has a fever-"

"She's fine."

"-it'll just get worse-"

"So, what? I can't take a goddamn temperature now? Jesus, Elliot!"

In the ensuing quiet interspersed with Sophie's whimpers, she can't help but hear Silence, Awkward Silence to the tune of U2's "Sunday, Bloody Sunday."

She needs to get out more.

"Give me Sophie, please."

"You wanna talk about this?" Elliot asks flatly. He makes no move to relinquish the baby. "Or are we gonna pretend you're upset that I want to check her temperature."

She glares.

"Alright then," he sighs, standing up. He brushes his lips against Sophie's forehead before passing her to Olivia.  
"I'm going out."

Her back stiffens. "What? Where?"

"Just… out," he sighs. "Be back soon."

An embarrassing desire to clutch his sleeve rises within her. She squelches it. The last thing she needs is to turn into Kathy-  
Where'd that come from?

"Call me if you need me," he says quietly. And then he's gone.

***

There is an ominous silence from Sophie's bassinet as his steps count a slow tattoo toward the door.  
Elliott is leaving.

"Don't," she whispers, and her voice weighs too much for the frail bones of her throat.

The doorknob is a period that his fingers curl around like a receding fog, and something cuts her lungs off at the thought of the end of one sentence, at the beginning of another.

He stills. The fog spreads, its pale wisps and tendrils wrapping coolly around her feet and ankles. The coldness spreads further as she feels water begin to rise beneath the mist.

Cold cold cold.

"Libby."

It's a whisper, and it only chills her further.

"Mom," she whispers back, but her eyes don't leave Elliot.

"Turn around, Libby."

The water rises higher. Elliot's back is still to her, his hand is still on the fucking doorknob.

Cold cold cold.

"Let him go, Libby."

No, she wants to say. Firmly, assertively. No. This doesn't happen. This can't happen.

"Elliot," she croaks.

Her shoulders heave erratically, twice for every even rise and fall of his, up and down and up and down and finally his head turns so his eyes can stare at her evenly.

"This isn't real."

He only says it once, but his voice echoes in her head long after the click of the lock and the water keeps on rising.

***

"Olivia!"

And suddenly her eyes are as open as her mouth, the sound of her gasp accompanying the large rush of oxygen to her lungs, the odd throbbing on her forehead.

"Elliot…?"

Elliot frowns down at her, his fingers tight around her shoulders. "Easy… you were having a nightmare."

She swallows, runs her hand down her face. Her heart is racing and Elliot... "Where's your shirt?"

He yawns. "I was sleeping."

"I woke you?"

"Yep." He stands, yawning. She can hear the sound of his nails absently scratching his stomach as he shuffles back out to the couch. He pauses in the doorway. "I'm surprised she managed to sleep through all the, uh…" he gestures vaguely toward the bassinet. "Hyperventilating."

Her fingers reach up to her forehead. "Yeah, she didn't really nap… wait, why does my head hurt?"

He shrugs. "I woke you up."

"How…" she trails off, watching him flick the air with his index finger. "What the hell, Elliot," she hisses. "Did you thump me?"

"Nightmare's over," he yawns again.

She's not so sure.

"Thank me later," he whispers loudly.

He turns to leave again and a still frame from her dream resurfaces; there's no doorknob but the silhouette of him is the same and before she can think she whispers, "Hey."

He turns back again, eyebrows raised. Her mouth works to ask the question that sits in her gut like a rock but the words stay down and no sound comes out.

"You need tucked in?" he asks dryly.

She huffs. "No. It's just…"

Eyebrows raised, he waits patiently. "Yes?"

"Did you want… are we supposed to talk about earlier?"

He sighs, running his hand down his face. "Not now, Liv. I've got an early morning."

"It's just that…"

"Olivia," he groans.

"…you've been sleeping on my couch for months."

He frowns. "S'there a problem?"

Words. She needs them.

"I'm here for you," he continues. "I'm here 'cause you asked me to stay, but if this… if you want me to leave—"

Her eyes snap up to his; she's scared shitless to realize she can't read them. "Do you want to leave?" she asks, her throat constricting around the question.

She can feel his annoyance flare from across the room.  
"What the hell kind of question is that?"

Silence.

Her voice, see, it's so heavy… her throat muscles tense and flex and try to push it out…

But nothing.

Silence.

Elliot is staring at her face, bullish and waiting. Her cowardice is a matador's cape.

"I don't know… I never know what you want," she whispers.  
Her words may as well have been, 'Toro! Toro!' because he's in front of her in an instant and it takes every ounce of her willpower to not flinch at his sudden nearness. She can smell soap and sleep on him as he towers over her, but then he bends closer, his hands flat on either side of her hips. Too close, she thinks. Too close.

"I've been sleeping on your couch for months," he hisses, throwing her words back in her face, only these… these words are doused in acid and anger and something else, something that picks and nicks and rips and rends something in her chest… she exhales shakily.

"I sleep on that goddamned couch and I go to work with a bad back. I talk to my kids, I go to their games, I see Kathy and then I'm here. I left today and I came back here."

Abort! Abort! her brain is screaming, and every inhale and exhale is a déjà vu.

"I come here," he repeats. "To you. To your kid. To your couch."

His eyes are twin butane flames glaring out at her from underneath the harsh slant of his angry brow. His breath washes over her face, a combination of toothpaste and Elliot and she's dizzy and he looks the same way, scary and dizzy and pissed.

"You take the time you need to figure your shit out," he breathes harshly. "But don't- don't sit there and act like you don't know what I want."

Want.

The word hangs heavy in the air between them until it grows, it uncurls, unfurls outside and low in her abdomen, conquering and coating her limbs in tension and craving. She can feel her heart galumphing in her chest, the boisterous beats of a clumsy percussionist; she breathes and breathes again, reveling the feel of being stranger in her own skin.

Elliot.

He's still breathing heavily, almost into her mouth. Her tongue flicks out to wet her lips.

"Let him go," Serena whispers.

Elliot is looking at her with a mixture of anger and  
uncertainty. "Liv?"

He's here, she thinks. He's here.

Her mother's whisper echoes, fades.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Elliot.

"Show me," she whispers.

And then it's fast.

So fast.

He shows her.

He pushes in and it's his mouth, it's Elliot's mouth and it's weird if she thinks about it but it would be weirder to stop and a moan goes up between them, she can't say which one of them it came from, only that it guides her hands up his arms, to his shoulders and neck, her nails dragging light and heavy and desperate wanting, wanting…  
He works over her mouth like a mad thing, like a monster, growling low in his throat as she sucks on his tongue and bites his bottom lip and shhh, shhh she thinks at the sound. The baby…

And then his lips move to nip and suck at the sensitive skin on the side of her neck and her concern is overshadowed by the realization that it's been days and weeks and months since he's touched her and even longer since he's been inside—

"Can you be quiet?" he whispers harshly, panting against her neck. "Say you'll be quiet."

She nods rapidly, it's enough for him and he turns back to the matter at hand.

The blanket is torn away from her and she is there in her cotton sleep pants and he is there, he is there in his boxers and back at her lips and down at her hips he is grinding into her with himself, he's so, so hard and there's the spot he keeps hitting and fuck…

"Gah," she moans.

He shushes her with his mouth. "Quiet," he orders.

"Don't… ah… don't tell me what to do," she hisses.

"Shhhh…"

His fingers move down, down, down over her breasts and across the new softness of her belly and down into the waist of her sleep pants and then her underwear and any annoyance at his bossy-during-foreplay attitude is forgotten as he slides further down and in and parts her, delving into what she is guessing to be an embarrassing amount of wetness…

He groans appreciatively as his finger finds her, his mouth moving on her breast as he dips into her wetness and rubs circles around her clit… and that leaves her and her wide open mouth, gasping for air as she arches back against the pillow.

"Open," he mumbles against her skin and she complies, her knees falling further apart as she clutches at his shoulders and he slides two fingers inside and his thumb keeps circling and it's good. It's so, so good.  
Hormones and an abstinent several months means she's writhing wordlessly underneath him within moments, her jaw alternating between clenching and almost-unhinged as he continues to rub circles, circles, small circles and life's a circle and here they are again except now there's a baby and a bassinet beside the bed and please please Sophie don't wake up, just keep sleeping and let mommy explode…

Her orgasm ascends, an impatient wave running through her muscles like a live wire and she fights to keep from yelling.

Breathe, breathe, breathe…

Elliot rides it out with her, his finger continuing to slide in and out, his hips steadily bucking into her hipbone. He sounds like he's run a marathon already.

"Now," she grunts, and it's unladylike and impatient but it works because he removes his fingers and starts sliding her pants and underwear further down with all the grace of a bear and she moves her legs to help him and then his hands disappear again as he yanks down his boxers. His erection bobs free and she reaches for him.

"Don't," he says, his voice quiet and harsh. "It's gonna be quick enough as it is."

He moves down, her legs on either side of his hips. He groans quietly, placing the tip of himself at her entrance.

"Go," she urges, her hands flexing against his ass in an  
attempt to get closer, to get in.

In.

IN.

Fucking. In.

With another groan, he slides in slowly, his face buried between her neck and shoulder as the muscles of his back bunch and release with the tension. She feels like she might split in two, both from the size of him and the giddy, relieved sex grin she can feel on her face.

In.

In.

Gah.

He bottoms out inside her and holds for several seconds, his breath harsh and loud.

Move, she thinks. Move move move.

She exhales a gasp in relief as he begins to thrust, reveling in the friction, the feel of him inside as he rolls his hips slowly against her.

"Ahh," she breathes.

He grunts in response. "Good?"

She nods, lets the noises his thrusts are eliciting do the talking. So good, she thinks. He fucks so, so good.

"Liv," he groans.

And it isn't the first time, because she's facing him and he's not with Kathy and they're not fucking against her locker but it's still so, so good and she flexes her muscles along his length, basking in the sound it draws from him, in the increased speed of his thrusts, in the secret words he whispers against her neck.

"Wh-what'd you say?" she gasps, moving against him greedily. He doesn't answer her, pumping into her faster, his words spilling out against her skin as she strains to focus, to focus, to focus…

That spot…

"Gah," she moans.

And then she hears him, hears the words spilling out on every breath against her and she knows.

It's not their first time again.

"I know you," he'd told her that day in the precinct and she'd been skeptical before bending over and letting him fuck her against a row of lockers.

I know you.

It had been comforting to hear.

But nothing… nothing compares to the words he's now painting onto her skin with every thrust.

"I want you," he murmurs into her neck. "I want you I want you I want you-"

She can feel her walls clench around him as her body tenses with the anticipation of coming…

He growls, threads his arms underneath her back, pulls her closer and drives into her faster…

"Harder," she gasps.

And then it happens, he hits a place inside over and over and over and over and OVER-

"God!" she cries.

When she opens her eyes again he is still above her, his eyes wild, and she can feel him harden even further inside her as he moves and it's Elliot it's Elliot it's Elliot-

"I want you, too," she whispers back. "I do. I want you."

He bucks into her harder, and only the flesh of her shoulder in his mouth keeps his groan from echoing through the bedroom when he comes.

***

Expectations. She's had them.

She did not expect this.

She clutches Elliot's weight to her as he collapses, holding him to her for long moments as his breathing evens out.

He eventually lifts himself off of her, slowly pulling out. He grimaces at her wince. "You okay?"

She nods, and means it.

He flops onto the other side of the bed with a groan.  
"God, I've missed mattresses." He catches her eye and frowns. "What?"

No words. "I… nothing."

"Tell me."

"Nothing, Elliot. Promise. Go to sleep."

After a quick trip to the bathroom she crawls back into bed, shutting her eyes and willing sleep to return, willing any further nightmares to be thwarted by the six foot two thermal generator in bed beside her.

Minutes pass as she waits for him to start snoring.

"Wanna talk about it?"

She starts. Did he want a highlights reel of the last hour? "What?"

"Your nightmare," he clarifies.

"Oh."

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in—

"Or not," he mumbles.

She pulls the comforter up higher, clutching it tightly between her fingers. "It… was nothing."

"Didn't sound like nothing."

"Well, what did it sound like then?" she asks testily.

He sighs. "You first."

Fine.

_Fine._

"You left," she huffs.

"When?"

"My dream… nightmare. Whatever. You left."

"In the nightmare."

"Mmhm."

"Then what?"

"What?"

"I left. Then what happened?"

She frowns at the ceiling. "Nothing."

"Tell me," he insists.

"Nothing happened," she huffs. "You left. That's it. My mother was there."

She can hear his wheels turning. "Huh."

"'Huh?' What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, nothing. I just figured… I don't know, you were pretty worked up."

"So?"

"So I figured it was about Sophie or someone dying or…"  
the bed moves slightly as he shifts. "Something serious."

The noise she makes drips of disbelief. "You leaving wouldn't be serious?"

"I always come back, don't I?"

Her mouth forms the words without her consent. "You didn't with Kathy."

Silence.

Breathe in.

Breathe out—

"Sorry," she whispers.

"Careful."

"I didn't mean—"

"Yeah, I think you did," he mutters acidly.

"That isn't what I meant to say—"

He sits up, rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. "Let's get one thing straight, Olivia: I don't leave. I've never left. I'm here for my kids. I'm here for my family. I'm always here."

"Elliot—"

"You want to talk about abandonment or whatever, fine, but you'd better be ready talk, too."

"Me?"

"Gitano. Oregon. The," he clears his throat uncomfortably.  
"First time."

"The first time- _you_ left."

"Yeah, after you told me to."

Her indignant huff is a lame comeback, and she knows it.

"Look, Liv… I'm not leaving," he says quietly.  
She rolls her eyes.

"I mean it," he insists.

The ceiling has never looked more interesting. "What about…" she falters, breaks, pulls it together. "What if we don't work?"

Silence, Awkward Silence.

"Then we don't," he answers after a moment. "But I'll still be here."

Despite her racing thoughts and sore muscles, sleep takes her in a matter of minutes. She dreams of her mother in their favorite bookstore.

Elliot's snoring form is still there when she wakes up to a night sky as it surrenders to the dawn. Years and blood and fights and flirting has all been the sum of an equation that equals him, here in her bed with no ring on his finger, snoring his ass off before he goes to work in a dimly lit room for the promise of a shitty pension.

Let him go, Serena whispers.

Olivia shakes her head.

She can't.

What if they can actually pull this off?

This is real, she tells herself, and Serena is silent.

The sun pinkens the sky, Sophie begins making hungry sounds in her bassinet, and Elliot's alarm goes off in the living room.

He mutters deprecatory remarks about sleepless nights and old age, swatting her ass as he gets out of bed. "Feed the kid, Benson," he throws over his shoulder on his way to the bathroom.

Forty-five minutes later, he dumps his coffee mug in the sink and walks out the door, brushing his lips quickly against her hair on the way.

"See you later," he says casually.

This is real, she tells herself again.

This is real.

***

Chapter End Notes:

**Serena's quote regarding the faithful/lessness of men is from Oscar Wilde.**

If you're still here, thank you for reading. If all goes according to plan, there will be one more chapter and an epilogue.


	52. Quantum res abeo…

Quantum res abeo…

"To skies that were brighter

Turned he his prows;

To gods that were lighter

Made he his vows…"

Burnt Ships, Henrik Ibsen

Some dreams are better left behind.

"To skies that are brighter," Serena's ghost sometimes whispers in the silences.

This is real, Olivia breathes, giving her reflection a last once-over before walking out the door – a feat that now takes three times as long as it used to. She's not sure if life just takes longer now, or if some sort of punctuality apparatus fell out of her uterus when she gave birth, but she is at least ten minutes late everywhere she goes.

Sorry, she now constantly tells receptionists. Time just got away from me…

From her Bumbo, Sophia gurgles contentedly, blissfully unaware of the adrenaline levels in Olivia's brain, the bills on the end table, or the amused Haitian nanny sitting on the couch.

"Can I help you find anything?" Perpétue asks, her accent lightening the question into a melody that does nothing to lessen Olivia's stress levels.

She pats herself down quickly. Keys. Wallet. Phone. Her badge and her gun are sitting in a safe somewhere down at the station, like old toys waiting to come out and play. She hopes she hasn't outgrown them.

"I've got everything," she finally announces. After all, today is the day that the State of New York expects her to pull herself up by her bootstraps and report back to work.

"Emergency numbers are on the fridge," she says for the seventeenth time, finally heading toward the door. "Call if anything happens. Or if you have any questions. She's been having a lot of separation—"

"Liv," Elliot hollers from the stairwell. His irritation is palpable. "Let's go!"

Perpétue's stoic smile gives away her amusement. "We gonna be okay," she states firmly, making a shooing motion with her hands. "Go."

Expectations, Olivia thinks, throwing one last baleful glance over her shoulder at Sophie.

It may have been a bit unrealistic to expect maternity leave to last forever.

"Welcome back," Cragen and several others tell her, their faces full of welcome and fatigue. Fin eyes her speculatively as she slowly settles into her old chair.

"It's like watching a flashback," he quips, watching her adjust the height of the seat. "How's it feel to be back?"

"Good," she answers, but it's really just okay, because home is no longer wherever she sits for more than twenty seconds – it's across the bridge in her gerbil cage of an apartment being cradled by an old Haitian woman with a mythical first name.

Who names their kid 'Perpétue,' anyway?

Her first day back's not even done before Cragen makes the announcement. She feels her face blanch at the news, even as she notes that Elliot looks thoroughly unsurprised. The captain's face brooks absolutely no protest.

"You're seriously splitting us up?" she protests anyway. It sounds whiny.

"You seriously want me to give you a list of reasons you two shouldn't even be in the same unit?" he fires back. "You're with Munch now. Get over it."

John's shit-eating grin when she gets back to her desk tells her all she needs to know.

"Tell me you're not on-board with this," she demands darkly.

"Fin and I drew straws for new partners…" he announces.

She sees the punchline coming from a mile away. "…And you lost."

He shrugs. "Doesn't matter. This scar from my last big ride-along with Elliot decided for me." He pats the area over his healed bullet wound.

"You've gotta let that go. I've been his partner for years and," she pats her torso. "Fit as a fiddle."

"I guess I just got unlucky. Besides, he's never really been one for shooting blanks," he replies, eying her steadily.

The air around them thickens as her shields go up. "Excuse me?"

John's face is carefully, completely impassive. "We're partners now." She nods, uneasiness crawling up her spine at what's coming. "So I'll only say this once: I don't know what happened with you and Elliot. I don't wanna know. Just don't make me lie to his kids when they come looking for him while you two are..." he shifts awkwardly. "Just leave me out of it."

Her words are heavy and cautious. "They know we're... they know where he is."

He stares. She stares back.

He's the first one to blink.

"Great," he shrugs, throwing her a set of car keys. "Ready to head out?"

It's her fourth day back with their first big call with her first new partner in years, and Elliot is being a dumbass.

Elliot is being a _dumbass_.

The thought rings so true, feels so good that she says it out loud. Twice. With relish.

"You're no picnic either," Munch mutters beside her, holding on to the inside of the car door as she navigates through the streets around Washington Square Park. A cab swerves in front of them and she slams on the brakes, huffing impatiently as Munch exaggeratedly feels his abdomen.

"Let me check for hemorrhaging," he grouses, scowling at the look she shoots him. "Tell me you don't drive like this with the kid."

"Shut up, John."

Elliot's voice suddenly blares from the radio by her side. "Suspect's by the Fountain. Liv, start heading this way, over."

"221, 10-4, en route," she responds, annoyed. "Elliot, wait for back-up, over."

"No time, I'm going now. Just get here, over."

The radio in her hand is not the medium through which she will berate him for his maverick confrontation of a possibly-armed suspect. A confrontation he is apparently undertaking _alone_.

She's with Munch. Her new _partner_.

"Liv, come through 8th Avenue, 17th Street, over."

"10-4," she replies, revving the car through a left-hand turn.

"Alright," his voice crackles. "I'm coming up behind him-"

His voice is cut off by the echo of a gunshot that bursts from the radio like an explosion. A retinal flash of him on a stretcher, blood-soaked coattails flapping mawkishly around him, flits through her mind's eye like a focal seizure. "Talk to me, El."

"He's moving," he yells moments later, and she breathes again. "Suspect is armed. Go behind Shorty's on 19th."

John grabs the radio from her. "10-4," he answers, glaring at her. "You can stop giving me that look. You almost just took out two pedestrians. Drive."

"Somebody get to 15th Street," Elliot barks, "then hit the 8th Avenue alley, come behind the park just in case he decides to go rabbit-"

"Where is he now?" John asks. The radio remains silent.

Silence.

Silence.

And then:

"Shots fired! Suspect is on the move-" the radio crackles, intermingles with his voice until all she can hear is white noise. "-blue jacket. Police! Freeze! Freeze!"

"Shit," John snaps.

Gripping the steering wheel, white-knuckled, she agrees.

Breathe, she tells herself.

Breathe breathe breathe.

"Elliot," John calls. "You okay?"

A few long moments pass in which Olivia formulates a plan to raise Elliot from the dead and then shoot him again for making her stay behind in a car with _Munch_.

"10-4," Elliot's out-of-breath voice replies. "Suspect is southbound- southbound from 17th, over."

"All units clear the air," Fin's voice demands. "Did I copy shots fired?"

She can almost imagine Elliot's vein protruding, pulsing angrily at the inquiry. "Yeah, Fin," he barks. "Shots fired. Multiple shots fired. Where the hell are you?"

"On my way, over."

"Liv, call a bus."

"10-4," John replies.

Tell the medics to standby, she wants to say. Elliot's gonna need one when she's through with him.

They're back in the squad room for approximately seven seconds before she unsheathes her claws in order to rip Elliot a New One.

"What the hell was that out there?" she demands hotly.

His blank look seems practiced. "What was what?"

He's playing dumb, and it only infuriates her more. "You. Alone. Me. In the car. With _John_."

"I'm clearly still within earshot," Munch mutters without looking up from his desk.

"There was no need for both of us to go in there," Elliot explains evenly. "You were needed where you were."

"Bullshit."

He scowls. "It's not bullshit. Calm down."

"You're crossing the line-"

"_I'm_ crossing the line?" he barks incredulously. "I'm doing my job. Now you do yours, and stop charging around here like you've got something to prove."

She huffs indignantly.

Something to prove.

She _does_ have something to prove. Namely that she hasn't been put out of commission by the recent utilization of her feminine reproductive organs, or the smell of baby food that seems to cling to Every Single Thing she owns.

"You've got a kid now," Elliot continues, absently grabbing a pen from his drawer before leaning back in his chair.

She glares at him, dissatisfied. "Yeah? You have _five_."

He flinches, but only just. "They've got Kathy. Sophia-"

"'Sophia' what?"

His uncomfortable pause is enough, and she sees red.

Red.

Several blocks away, her six-month-old child is spending her day with a nanny she can barely afford while she busts her ass trying re-discover her place in this godforsaken job, and Elliot – that _asshole_ – is calmly maneuvering his pen across his DD5s like there's nothing amiss, like he's not cutting her out of a rhythm she'd practically invented alongside him.

Red is all she sees.

"Single parents are supposed to pay their bills just like everyone else," she seethes. "Last I checked, that requires a paycheck."

"You have a job."

"Yeah, and you're not letting me do it. Cragen's cleared me to work, Elliot, which means you don't run into something half-assed without-"

"My partner had my back," he interrupts calmly.

"Your _partner_ was four blocks away," she hisses. "_I_ had your back."

"Why don't you worry about your own partner? He looks a little worse for the wear."

"Just a couple broken ribs," Munch quips from his desk. "Nothing you wouldn't expect from a routine car ride with a hormonal maniac."

Fin huffs a laugh. Elliot _smirks_.

"Fuck all of you," she snaps, grabbing her jacket and heading for the door. "I'm done here."

"See you at home," Elliot calls after her, and maybe it's just her but he doesn't sound half as upset as he should.

This is real, she mutters to herself as she stalks down the sidewalk.

And so went her first week back.

And, despite her worst fears, everything's fine.

Each morning, she and Elliot walk in companionable silence to take the train into Manhattan, their shoulders occasionally brushing as they trudge into the day. Their strides sync effortlessly, and it makes her miss their partnership at work.

Fortunately, her new partner isn't exactly a stranger, and she feels herself reluctantly slipping into a work routine that doesn't involve glaring balefully at Elliot and Fin as they discuss their newest case. She's also remembered just how to tune John out when he waxes poetic on the evils of the federal government.

She comes in from work each night to an exhausted nanny and a daughter that almost always seems happy to see her.

The work is the same, and she feels each case shredding her heart just a little bit more… but she's always been too close. She tells herself that she won't always cry after interviewing the victims, that she won't always see their faces in her mind's eye during the seconds before she falls asleep.

It's the closest to happy she's ever been.

This is real, she repeats to herself periodically.

This is real.

Days turn to weeks, then to months; time coaxes change out of everything, everything, everything.

Baby Neptune songs turn into Dora the Explorer episodes, and she's walked into the living room more than once to find her infant daughter haphazardly pulling various light books and magazines off the lower shelf of the bookcase as Elliot watches the news.

She's fine, he reassures her as she stifles the urge to pull the child away from anything with wires, shelves, corners, or pages – paper cuts, after all, are a very real threat.

"It means she's gonna be a reader," he intones placidly, watching Olivia blow bubbles from the floor. "Smart kid."

"What if she pulls one of the big books down onto her?"

"She can't even move them. Calm down."

She tries.

This is real, she thinks incredulously. Her pen moves across the dotted line with practiced speed, then Elliot signs the line below it and Sophie gives them one of her open-mouth grins, her intermittently spaced baby teeth still working the animal crackers.

Their new landlady shakes her hand and doesn't stop smiling as she tells Olivia how happy she is to have tenants in law enforcement.

"The three of you are going to love it here," she exclaims.

The three bedroom, two bath in Queens is conveniently located near good schools, a passable coffee shop, and a tolerable commute to Manhattan. The street outside their new building is refreshingly free of any disgusting smells, and her new neighbors are just friendly enough to not make her skin crawl.

The Stabler Brood helps with Moving Day. The awkwardness between her and Elliot's oldest children has decreased only slightly, and she finds herself quieter than normal for fear of saying the wrong thing. Eli Stabler grins when he sees the guest room, and Kathy's expression has gradually evolved over time from one of chagrin and anger to cool acceptance and the occasional passive-aggressive jab at her ex-husband's partner.

"Everything okay with you?" Kathy asks once when the two of them are alone, her voice quiet in both kindness and resentment.

Alarmed, Olivia looks toward the doorway, praying for someone, anyone, to enter the room and spare her this conversation.

Kathy's still looking at her evenly, and there may be less hostility than Olivia deserves but the very presence of Elliot's ex-wife tends to make her uneasy.

"We're fine," she eventually answers.

Kathy's non-committal hum is more than she deserves.

"Ready to christen some of these rooms?" Elliot asks, resplendent in the machismo and cockiness of a twenty-year-old.

She rolls her eyes.

The master bedroom was first.

"Kitchen next?" Elliot asks, panting as he slips out of her and collapses onto the mattress with a huff.

She stretches gingerly, testing the hamstring muscle he may or may not have just pulled by driving into her with her leg over his shoulder. "Tomorrow?" she asks, her own breathing embarrassingly heavy. "Let's keep it on the bed tonight."

He smirks. "Your leg hurt?"

"I think you stretched it too far," she admits, her mind's eye seeing a flash of him pressing against her ankle as he moved above, in and out of her.

"Sorry about that," he smirks.

It's fine, and she tells him so.

"You pull a muscle?"

"I don't know," she answers, rolling contentedly to her side. "Maybe."

They lie, still and silent, for several minutes and she's just about to see if he's asleep when he grabs her waist and flips her onto her back again, grabbing her uninjured leg. "Guess I'd better even you up, then."

She's not complaining as he re-enters her, but her soreness the next morning poses a bit of a problem.

"What the hell happened to you?" Munch asks the next morning, his shrewd eyes catching every time she winces as she shifts in her seat.

Across from them, Elliot continues typing, the epitome of Smug. Bastard.

She shifts again, ignoring the inquisitive eyes of her partner. Getting old is _hard_.

She's awakened one Saturday afternoon from her post-nursing doze by a thud. With a moan, she slowly cracks one eye open to find Elliot standing over her, looking at her expectantly.

"Sorry," he offers. "You awake?"

"No."

"I found this in one of your boxes," he continues, ignoring her crankiness and gesturing to the old leather-bound book he'd dropped onto the end table beside her. "Might wanna take a look through it."

She frowns, eyeing the weathered edges of the binding suspiciously. "Is that my mother's?"

His silence answers for him.

"I've already read it," she sighs, leaning back into the chair as Sophie continues her contented feeding sounds.

"All of it?"

"Enough of it."

He nods. "Well, here it is if you want to look through it again. I emptied out your old boxes into the office closet."

"Spare bedroom closet," she corrects sleepily.

"Whatever." He smirks. "Feeling uptight?"

She scowls. "What do you care?"

"Need me to loosen you up?"

"I'm a little busy at the moment. And still sore. Thanks."

He grins wolfishly. "You just need to stretch. I'll wait."

They christen their living room to the point that seeing the couch makes her squirm with discomfort and something else for several days afterward.

One thing about Elliot: he's _thorough_.

The old book taunts her from its spot on Sophie's end table. She can practically smell the past on it, wafting through the air of the nursery on a cloud of vodka and Chanel No. 5.

Her fingers have unconsciously reached for it several times, only to recoil when her brain catches the movement.

I want to understand her, she tells herself.

You've tried to understand, her brain replies calmly. You never do.

I need to know her.

Why set yourself up for more disappointment?

I want…

I need…

The book remains untouched.

She aches.

The work is harder than ever. She can feel callouses forming on her feet from walking, but her heart isn't so lucky – every story bruises her spirit; every detail begins to make her flinch away.

Every child is Sophia.

She can feel it making her soft, making her slow, making her miserable, making everyone else uneasy. She can sense Serena's cold stare on the back of her neck, can hear her voice telling her about the shame of quitting. She can see the concern grow in Elliot's eyes, can hear the caution in his voice as he asks if she's okay.

She always says yes, and John does his best, but even he has his limits.

"If you can't do this anymore, find something else," Munch tells her one day in the car, his voice a mix of kindness and concern. "No shame in that."

Stone-faced, she ignores him.

Josie Webb is a five year old mute girl with stitches in places no little girl should ever, _ever_ have stitches. She also has an uncle who likes little girls.

"They're so tight," he tells an undercover cop at a Greek restaurant. "They're perfect, beautiful little princesses."

"Who's that?" the cop asks, looking at the picture his dinner companion fawns over.

"My little Josie," Webb answers. "Made just for me. She's an angel."

"Is she tight, too?"

Josie's uncle smiles. "The tightest."

And then there's the bust: shouting and moving and the pleading of a man that Olivia wants to rip apart with her bare hands.

Her daughter is at home, growing and learning and living, breathing the same air as the monster in the back of their squad car and others just like him and it's too much, life's too scary because Olivia can't be everywhere at once and her daughter, her little girl, might one day be as trusting as little Josie Webb—

The case gets to her.

Josie's uncle gets to her.

The tapes get to her.

Josie's wide, frightened eyes get to her the most – the silence behind them wakes her up at night.

"You okay?" Elliot asks and asks and asks.

"Yeah," she says. "I'm good," she says. "Everything's fine," she says.

Except it isn't.

Preston Webb is acquitted.

That night, she holds Sophie in her arms and fights to stay here, in the moment, in the nursery. Her daughter's contented coos soothe her somewhat.

But Josie's silences are louder.

The report says she responded to a call from Josie and fired in self-defense.

Only she, her gun and God know that Preston Webb never laid a hand on her. Probably never wanted to. She was, after all, too old to be his type.

John calls a bus and applies pressure as Preston bleeds out and she lowers her gun and breathes and breathes and breathes and measures her breaths until Preston is gone and she's gone and going and going and home and holding her daughter for hours.

Elliot wasn't at the scene that day, but he looks at her speculatively from the nursery doorway and she's sure he knows.

He always knows.

"I understand it," he murmurs later that night into the quiet above their bed, his voice interrupting her internal musings on the way Josie Webb's eyes looked when her parents told Uncle Preston was gone.

She stills.

"I know why you did it."

She listens.

"I wish I could have pulled the trigger for you… but, Liv..." He clears his throat. "Olivia… you can't do this. You know that's now how it works."

She is still, silent, weighing his words against the faces in her head.

Josie. Uncle Preston. Countless others.

Elliot.

Serena.

Sophia.

Sophia.

Sophia.

Sophia, above all.

His words hang heavy, silently settling into her skin, into her bones, into every nook and cranny. She would have balked at the thought of quitting if he'd spoken them to her in years past, but now… she remembers the pull of the trigger and receives them.

"I know," she finally whispers back.

He rolls over to her then, a question mark in his gaze, and she receives him, too.

Her last day in Special Victims is marked by paperwork, paperwork, paperwork and a small party thrown by her colleagues.

Computer Crimes awaits. Elliot looked relieved when she'd revealed her new assignment.

After all, she can't shoot unarmed pedophiles with a keyboard.

This is real, she whispers sometimes at night, her fingers clutching absently at the doorframe of Sophie's room, Olivia's eyes resting on the slow, even rise and fall of her daughter's tiny chest as she sleeps in her first big-girl bed. She'd held Sophie in her lap that night as they'd read before bedtime and she'd felt every, single, tiny bird-like rib in her three year old chest. Her daughter's size is intimidating in its fragility. For now.

Serena's book remains, a permanent fixture on the end table.

Much to her chagrin, Elliot's career begins to follow a natural upwards progression not long after she leaves. His promotion to Sergeant carries with it a pay raise, a change of pace, and an ungodly amount of eye-rolling from his former partner.

"You selling out on me?" she jokes after he tells her the news; the tired sigh he'd expelled was her answer.

She hears Elliot come in late some nights, feels the bed jostle as he crawls onto his side and flops down. They're not people who wake up curled around each other – she likes her space, and his body is essentially a snoring campfire – but she likes the weight of him, solid and staying, within reach. Sometimes he sighs, even in his sleep, but she's wise enough not to ask him what it means.

This is real, the other side of her mattress declares.


	53. Epilogue, Part I: Quantum subsisto id

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on; nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, translated by Edward Fitzgerald

Sophie's limbs stretch and strengthen, and Olivia listens as her baby's coos and cries turn into words, sentences, ideas and questions. The bookcase and its contests are still favorite playthings, only now the books are methodically selected, pulled out and pored over by her daughter's hungry eyes.

One book, its pages weathered with age, remains unopened, and only Olivia's imagination supplies whatever scent used to come off its worn leather cover. Serena's words beckon, always tempting her with the possibility of answers, but she's made little time to revisit her past. Her fear of it sometimes outpaces the terror that shades the future.

She watches her daughter's skin brown in the summer sun and pale in the winter solstice, her grey eyes alert and alive and always, always questioning.

"Do I have a grandma?" Sophie had asked before bed one night, and Olivia had frozen for several seconds before answering yes, but both Kurt's parents and hers were in Heaven and that they'd talk more about it later.

Later.

She's not sure how much time will pass before it becomes easier to answer Sophie's endless parade of questions. Olivia cannot bring herself to tell five-year-old Sophia of how Serena Benson tumbled to her death in a drunken stupor, or of the story that led to her drinking in the first place, or of why Kurt's weekends with his daughter become fewer and farther between as Sophie continues to grow.

A stickier question is the issue of Elliot, whose constant presence and unwavering paternal instincts with Sophia are belied by the way she addresses him by his first name.

"Is Elliot your husband?" her daughter asks sometimes, all wide-eyed innocence and baby-tooth smiles. Olivia's happy – they're all happy, she thinks – but she's not sure how to tell Sophie that her ring finger remains bare because sometimes, mommies don't fucking _want_ husbands.

Olivia and Sophia's fourth Thanksgiving dinner together is spent in the company of the Stabler clan.

"This is weird," Olivia mutters as Elliot pulls into the driveway of his old house. The house he'd raised his children in with Kathy. With _Kathy_.

"It's weird if you make it weird," he replies, annoyed. She can see the toll the prospect of an evening with his live-in girlfriend, her daughter, his ex-wife and children is taking on him; he seems to vibrate with the tension of it.

She's right and he's wrong - the evening's weird regardless, but Sophia's adorable and any awkwardness is usually alleviated with an observation of what she's doing.

"So are you guys getting married or what?" Kathleen asks rudely, her question parenthesized with a "This is a delicious, Kathy" and "Pass the gravy."

Olivia almost chokes on her turkey. Elliot stares at his daughter with a vague, open-mouthed grimace that almost looks like a bemused smile. "Kathleen," he begins slowly, his tone patient.

"Begetables!" Sophia squeals from her seat, choosing the moment to launch a spoonful of peas into Elliot's face.

The relieved air of the table is palpable.

"Mama," Sophie whispers loudly one Saturday morning.

More sleep, Olivia wants to groan. "It's early, Bug. What're you doing?"

"I made pictures in my book."

"Oh yeah?" she yawns.

"Look."

"Mmhm."

"Mama, _look_."

One eye slowly opens and...

Her heart thuds to a stop.

Both eyes open wide.

"Sophia Joy, where'd you get this paper?"

"From my book."

"Which book?"

Sophia looks at her gravely. "My shoe book."

Shoe book.

With a gasp, she remembers that 'shoe' is Sophie's word for 'leather.'

There's only one leather book in her daughter's room. Serena's journal.

Shit.

Shit shit _shit_.

With no heed to the sleeping hulk beside her, she races to Sophie's room, her eyes flashing immediately to the end table.

Serena's book isn't there.

"Sophie, where's your book?" she demands.

Sophie points.

There…

Under the bed.

Open.

Pages scattered.

Torn.

"See my pictures?" Sophie asks proudly, her chubby fingers holding up a drawing of a brown circle of questionable dimensions with various colors superimposed across its shape. Beneath the crayons, Serena's unmistakable scrawl fills the page.

Something inside of Olivia rips, jagged and cold and sad. It feels like regret.

"She didn't know, Liv."

"I know."

"She's just a kid."

"Shut up, Elliot."

She doesn't cry, but she wishes she could as she carefully presses the worn, torn pages back into Serena's journal. She stares, unseeing, at the lines.

Her mother's words, cursive and curt, stare back.

She reads what she can.

Ever the Literature professor, Serena's journal is filled with her allegory and abstracts. Her mother breathed poetry, even in her most private thoughts.

"_The beast within, Oh him_

_That beast within - To whom is his allegiance concerned? _

_Not to you, and this I know_

"_I don't know!"_

_As much as explanations come and go, that's all the hell _

_of one that I have had ever will have_

_I'll never have any words of comfort about it except that-_

_So don't come looking for them, except that-_

_And that's me saying that I don't want to wake up to your cries anymore; Or raise you or take a look up cursory glance when I hear your voice in the morning, Except that-_

_My only, only really singularly and lonely explanation _

_For _

_You_

_That I will ever have!_

_Is that _

_I had just been broken_

_And do you know how I tell you, child_

_That I don't believe in "love?"_

Numb, she sits.

Her eyes seek the date at the top of the page. Her mind races, doing the math.

The day she'd left for college.

Her mother, the beast.

She almost cries.

Read again, her mind constantly prods. Read more.

Burn it, the rest of her screams. Burn it and forget.

Elliot finds her, frozen on the floor, her fingers clutching an old, worn page.

"You okay?" he asks, concern soaking his words. Wordlessly, she holds up the pages detailing her mother's darkness, watches him as he skims the script.

That night, his snoring be damned, he holds her and she lets him.

After re-reading the journal, she dreams of nothing for three nights.

And on the fourth, she sees Serena.

"Come out on the boat," her mother suggests lightly, and Olivia complies, watching the shore recede and hoping they can float with the weight of the world upon her.

The water laps softly at the sides of the rowboat, rippling out, out, out, out, out to bigger ripples and bigger ripples that wash up onto sandy, serene shores. The lake is nestled in green, sapphire in the heart of an emerald forest, and Serena is the crown jewel of it all, her grey eyes calm and tranquil.

Her peace makes Olivia's misery that much starker in contrast.

"'_There is another sky,'_" Serena quotes. "'_Ever serene and fair_,

_And there is another sunshine, Though it be darkness there-_'"

"Stop," Olivia rasps.

Her mother stops, stares, confused.

"Please stop."

"Why?"

"Just… stop. Stop! Stop quoting your damn poetry and – for once – tell me something _real_!"

Serena is silent.

The only movement is that of the water and, consequently, the boat.

Back.

Forth.

Back.

Forth.

"What would you like me to say?" her mother eventually asks.

"Answer a question for me."

Serena nods.

"Did you ever love me? The way I love Sophia? And don't answer me with some goddamned poem."

Her mother sighs. "Poetry's all I have."

"Well. I need more."

Her mother hums thoughtfully. "We'll sit for a little while."

And they do.

This isn't real, her mind whispers.

But it's all she has.

"Why don't you live with Mom?"

Eli's question seems to echo through the apartment, and Olivia freezes, out of sight in the hallway, listening as Elliot explains why he lives with Olivia and not Eli's mother.

Mom and I still love each other, Elliot tells him quietly. Just not like that anymore. Not like that.

"Do you love Olivia like that?" Eli asks slowly.

She never hears Elliot's answer, but later that night he pulls her into the shower with him and she knows.

She _knows_.

This is real, she moans into into his shoulder as he moves inside of her, holding her up with his arms as his hips drive her into the shower wall in a steady, relentless rhythm. He thrusts in time to his own breathless mantra that she can't understand until right before he comes.

Of course, he grunts, over and over and over. Of course.

This is real.

"What's with the fidgets?" Eli asks Sophie one morning, eyeing her from beneath his mop of wheat-colored curls as her toothpick legs swing restlessly against her chair. "You got ants in your pants?"

"I've got ANTS in your PANTS and they're… making me DANCE," Sophia crowed.

"You've got ants in _your_ pants. Not ants in my pants."

"They're making me DANCE!"

"Inside voices, please," Olivia grunts from her spot by the coffee maker. "Sophie, stop kicking the table."

From behind his paper, Elliot casts a dry glance in Olivia's direction before taking another bite of his eggs and addressing Sophia. "Hold still, Soph."

"I've got ANTS-"

"You can dance with your ants later. You two need to get dressed or you're gonna be late for school."

Olivia berates herself for the flare of annoyance that appears at her lack of coffee, Sophie's boisterous volume and Elliot's superhuman patience in dealing with childish exuberance before noon.

"Thanks, Eli," she murmurs appreciatively as he places his dishes on the counter by the sink. In keeping with his cherubic appearance, Elliot's son is an angel. She smiles at his back as he leaves the kitchen…

…Only to spot her own offspring trying to drop cereal pieces in the milk carton.

"Sophie! What are you- Elliot!"

Startled, his eyes dart away from the paper. "Hm? Oh. Sophie," he scolds absently. "Stop that. You know better."

"It's for breakfast tomorrow," she protests innocently.

"Go get dressed," Olivia mutters, hearing the many shades of tired in her own voice.

And this is her life now, she thinks as she downs her coffee. Work and work and work and a girl at home. A curious, _active _girl who enjoys reading and talking to anyone who will listen and getting marker stains on the couch cushions…

Enough of that, she tells herself, grasping for the gratitude that is rarely out of reach. She's all too aware of how quickly childhood can disappear.

Serena never completely leaves her alone.

There are flashes, here and there, of her voice as it whispers things like, "Honestly, Libby," after a particularly trying maternal experience.

Her mother's always had a front seat to her failures.

At night, by land or by sea, Dream Serena never gives her anything more than a vague smile. Instead, they sit, staring.

"I'm still waiting for answers," Olivia says testily, once.

"Waiting is good," Serena replies.

She sees Elliot's hair grow grayer with each birthday. She briefly sees her own do the same in between coloring touch-ups.

Maureen finally marries a man Elliot tolerates. Olivia sits with Sophie two rows behind Elliot and Kathy, watching his oldest daughter take her vows and thinking that the twists in life which have jarred her the most have also brought her the most happiness.

She lets Sophia stand on her feet as they dance at the reception, rebuffing Elliot's sole attempt to get her onto the dance floor.

"Dance with Maureen or Kathleen," she suggests. "Or Kathy." Before he can protest, she continues. "Be a normal family today."

His smile is enigmatic as he informs her that there's no such thing.

She takes Sophie home when Elliot's Irish family members start getting rambunctious.

"Where's Elliot?" Sophie asks on the sidewalk.

"He's coming home later," Olivia answers, ignoring the sharp twinge that happens whenever she makes a promise to her daughter on Elliot's behalf. Come home, she pleads internally, even as she knows he will.

He does.

Serena speaks louder in some places than in others.

"There's something about the moon, Libby…" she said once.

Cedar Grove cemetery has held little appeal for Olivia even before Serena's undignified tumble down her last flight of bar stairs. Individual headstones stretch into an impersonal distance, blurring into a vast grey space as they extend to the property's edge near the waterfront, the occasional tree jutting into the sky like the collective outstretched arm of all resting beneath it.

Now Olivia stands, older and maybe wiser, thinking of years ago when she wore black in this very spot, her heels sinking into the grassy domain of the deceased, her eyes staring blankly down at the simple paulownia wood casket. After Serena's burial, she'd walked a short distance past another graveside service and heard a woman's keening wail; the sound was remarkable only when compared to the utter silence of her mother's own service.

It's nearly a decade later, with a few extra wrinkles and more greys than Olivia will ever admit to having. She imagines she feels looser, softer than previous incarnations of herself whose only goals were survival and self-sufficiency. She knows she feels older.

Her heart is neither heavier nor lighter, but these days, there are more people around to help her carry its weight.

She lets her eyes travel over the words she'd had etched into the stone above Serena Benson's head.

SERENA ELIZABETH BENSON

May 13, 1946-October 20, 1999

_Fly not yet; 'tis just the hour_

_When pleasure, like the midnight flower_

_That scorns the eye of vulgar light,_

_Begins to bloom for sons of night,_

_And maids who love the moon._

"There's something about the moon, Libby," Serena had said shortly before her death. "It sees the worst in everyone, I think… everything that happens at night, good and bad and worst. And still the returns, unaffected, unattached. Beautiful. She's above it all."

Serena's voice continues to whisper, and Olivia stills, listens, and remembers.

They'd been leaving a restaurant after dinner; Olivia remembers the pinch of her shoes and the faint smell of garbage as they waited for the 'Walk' signal.

On her better days, Serena had possessed the ability to be somewhat gregarious; on and on she spoke about work, about literature, about the decline of society and the beauty of the moonlight, about the two new friends she'd met a month before. Olivia often found herself only half-listening, impatiently wondering what the hell her mother was rambling on about.

Moons or moonshine, she'd thought, stepping out onto the crosswalk as Serena paused for a response.

She felt the pinch of Serena's hand around her upper arm before jerking back, startled by the whoosh of the car that screeched by, the vehicle almost close enough to brush against her coat.

"What the hell are you thinking, Olivia? You need to look where you're going!"

All talk of lunar anthropomorphism forgotten, she'd turned to face Serena.

Eyes snapping, mouth tightened into a scowl, her mother had glared up at her. "You might be a little more considerate of _my_ feelings before hurling yourself in front of a moving vehicle," she said hotly.

Olivia angrily opened her mouth to protest. "I didn't see—"

"You need to _look_. What the hell did they teach you at Police Academy? _Second graders_ know to check before crossing!"

"_God_, Mom, do you think for one second-"

Serena's face grew impossibly harder, her words erupting in a growl, a grinding. "Don't interrupt me!"

The sounds of the city were all that swirled between them for several long moments. Confused, Olivia stared down at her mother's drawn face, waiting.

Waiting.

"Mom-"

"We're all we've got, Libby," Serena had interrupted in a low voice, lifting her eyes to stare at something across the street. "You could at least _pretend_ that means something."

"I didn't see the car, Mom," Olivia replied quietly.

"You weren't looking."

I'm sorry, Olivia had started to say – anything to wipe the helpless, angry look off of her mother's aging face.

But the words never came.

"I'll check next time," she offered after several seconds. "Okay?"

Serena had shrugged, but that moment - the moment of quiet and stunned silence when Serena had shown her ever-hidden hand – stayed with Olivia for years.

Moonlight, Olivia had remembered later, after being told of Serena's fatal fall. She'd died in the moonlight.

The eternal girl in her has, on more than one occasion, entertained the idea of visiting the grave at night to return to that moment on the sidewalk, to share her mother's love of the moonlight; but practicality and an ironic, irrational fear has kept her away. She wouldn't put it past Serena to dig herself out to both enjoy the lunar cycle she'd once adored and to rake her adult daughter over the coals for the obscure burial plot Olivia had been forced to select.

"You might as well have thrown me in a mass grave!" Serena might grumble, indignant.

Olivia's not sure, but she probably wouldn't have been surprised to have found a clause in her mother's will stipulating nothing less than a burial in Westminster Abbey. The space by Longfellow might have been up to snuff.

Now, the bite of November winds bite into her back, and she looks away from the grave, down into the face of her brown-curled, bundled-up progeny.

"You okay?" she asks gently, squeezing her daughter's hand.

Sophie's grey eyes peek up at her from beneath her knit cap. "Is she cold?" she lisps.

Yet another question Olivia doesn't know how to answer.

"Children don't need to be coddled," Serena had once declared. "We all live in the same world. They need to realize it."

A time will come when she'll take that advice to heart, Olivia decides. But for now… "She stays nice and warm, I promise."

"She's sleeping? In Heaven?"

Olivia nods slowly. "Yeah."

Sophie sighs. "I'm cold. Can we tell her bye?"

"Why don't you tell her about your new teacher first?"

"My new teacher?"

Sophie does this now, repeating the words of the grown-ups around her in the interrogative form. Olivia finds it endearing enough to be shocked when Fin advises her to clean out her four-year-old daughter's ears.

"She's a kid, Fin," she'd rebutted testily. "She's learning."

"Not fast enough," he'd grumbled. "Feels like I'm sittin' with a damn parrot."

"Mama, what's a damn parrot?"

"Thanks, Fin," Olivia had hissed, noting with some satisfaction the chagrin on her co-worker's face.

A satisfaction that became short-lived once Sophia began using the phrase "damn parrot" with all the relish and enthusiasm of a longshoreman.

At the moment, the exuberance of the child in question seems momentarily dampened by the lack of toys and people. At least, living people.

"Tell her about what you learned at school yesterday," Olivia prompts. She can see the hesitation on her daughter's face and tries another tack. "I'll go over here and wait for you until you're done," she suggests. "I'll stand right under that tree so you two can talk alone."

The prospect of humiliation removed, Sophia nods slowly, and Olivia moves a few yards away to lean against the wintry, weathered bark of a Cottonwood tree. She watches Sophie stamp her feet against the cold, her skinny, stocking-ed legs comically small inside her gumboots.

"Are you listening?" Sophie yells into the wind.

Olivia shakes her head, plugging her ears for effect.

Several minutes pass in which Sophie talks to Serena Benson's headstone, the pompom on top of her hat fluttering as she moves, her tiny feet carrying her in an absent, meandering circle around the grave. She is a child in perpetual motion, and her tendency to move and move and MOVE is a splash of color on the still, grey-dotted landscape.

Still like the stones, Olivia watches and waits.

After a few minutes of hushed words and fidgeting, Sophie approaches. "I'm COLD," she announces.

Olivia stands, dusting herself of leaves and cold and inactivity. "You tell her goodbye?"

"Yes and I told her about Mrs. Reilly and Eli's Xbox and how I want a pet squirrel."

"Oh yeah?" she asks indulgently, letting Sophie tug her towards the car. "Anything else?"

"No."

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes. How come you don't ever talk to her?"

Olivia sighs, her feet crunching steadily across the hard ground. "I like hearing _you_ talk to her," she manages with a smile.

Sophie nods, momentarily appeased. "Can we have burgers?"

"Sophie," Olivia groans. "We had burgers last night."

"Elliot said burgers _all week _because of my spelling test."

"Not burgers, Soph."

"Why?"

"Because we need to eat better than that."

"Why?"

"So our hearts can be pretty."

Sophia frowns. "Isn't Elliot's heart pretty?"

Cue eye roll. "Elliot's heart is big and fat," she replies bluntly. "And he needs to eat less red meat."

"Oh. Can we have pizza instead?"

If this child isn't as big as a house by the time she's six, Olivia muses darkly, it will be no credit to the dietary habits of Elliot Stabler.

That night, the rowboat, and Serena within it, is eerily still.

"Still waiting?" her mother asks with a small smile.

"Always," Olivia replies.

"You still want answers."

"Always."

"Why?"

"You owe them to me."

"_The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ / Moves on; nor all thy Piety nor Wit_

_Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line / Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it," _Serena quotes.

Olivia sits, motionless and bewildered. "That's it?"

With a sigh, Serena sits back, her gaze even. "That's all I have," she says again.

It always comes to this.

"So that's all I get. A poem." Olivia scowls. "Great."

"That's all I—"

"It's all you have. I get it. Just… are you ever sorry?"

Her mother's face is unreadable. "Always."

"Liv!"

"In here," she calls from her closet, actively tamping down the bitterness that has risen within her at the realization that her favorite black cocktail dress now showcases her very own uncooperatively large breasts and ass.

"Sophie with Kurt?" he asks from her bedroom.

"Uh, yeah."

"All weekend?"

"Yeah, 'til Sunday. Why?"

"My kids are with their grandparents." He appears in the doorway of her closet, loose tie and open fly, letting out a low whistle. "That… looks good."

"Yeah, once upon a time," she scoffs.

"What's wrong with it?"

She turns to face him, gesturing toward the plunging décolletage. Elliot's eyes follow her hands and he smirks. "No, I asked what's _wrong_ with it."

"I'm getting old, Elliot. _That's_ what's wrong with it."

He snorts. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"My _boobs_ are old."

He shrugs. "I like 'em."

"C'mon."

"What? They're boobs." He moves closer. "They're _your _boobs." He reaches out and tweaks her left nipple, grinning as it hardens underneath the material. "See? That one works just fine. Want me to check the right one?"

She rolls her eyes. "Honestly, Elliot."

"Don't give me that," he scoffs. "We've got the apartment to ourselves for the weekend-"

"Yeah, and a Christmas formal to be at in an hour and a half. A formal I don't have a dress for."

"Wear that."

"Boobs, Elliot."

"Yeah, I saw 'em."

She feels his warmth behind her as he approaches, watches in the mirror as his hand snakes around her waist and pulls her back into a reminder that, age be damned, there are still parts of them that work just fine, thank you.

"Liv," he growls playfully against her neck, his hand kneading against her lower abdomen before sliding up to cup one of the breasts in question.

"Mm?" she breathes.

"Flash me."

Moments later she's on the floor, ignoring an errant shoe digging into her back as Elliot bunches her skirt around her hips, his fingers pumping into her briefly before he aligns himself and slides home with an appreciative grunt. He grins down at her as he begins to move, as she wraps her legs around his still-muscular hips and digs her heels into his ass, as she runs one of her hands down the column of his neck and beneath his collar to scratch, to leave a mark.

The noise he makes tightens her; he responds by moving faster. Where he gets his stamina, she has no idea, but no one's complaining and-

"Shit!" she yelps.

_No one _is complaining.

Ten minutes later, she clutches her bed's headboard, praying desperately for her dress not to wrinkle as Elliot moves into place behind her. She fights a moan when she feels him re-enter.

"We're gonna be late to that party," he pants.

They are.

Another night, another dream, she meets her mother in a desert.

They sit.

Silently.

Always silent.

"Give me something else," she begs Serena.

With a smile, her mother speaks.

"_Ne jamais oublier votre chanson berceau_," she says, moments before her face and words fade into the morning.

Olivia's French is rusty, but she takes the phrase she'd sleepily scrawled onto the bedside notepad and translates it with a search engine.

_Ne jamais oublier votre chanson berceau._

Never forget your cradle song.

The blessing and the curse, she thinks.

The moving finger writes, and having writ...

Always remember.

Never forget.

If only she could.

The changes keep happening subtly, slowly. An ache, a pang, more grey hair, a looseness where there was once nothing but sinewy muscle.

Time marches on, and they all obediently follow.

Trips to Serena's grave become fewer and farther between, always ending with Sophia kissing her grandmother's headstone before walking back to her mother under the cottonwood tree.

"You should talk to Grandma," Sophie announces after one of her rituals with Serena's headstone.

Olivia smiles sadly at the conviction in her nine-year-old's voice. "Yeah?" she asks evenly, standing from her seat beneath the tree.

"Yeah."

She bends over to collect the contents of the case file she'd been reviewing. "And what exactly should I talk to her about, Bug?"

"I don't know. Tell her about work," her daughter suggests.

"I don't think Grandma wants to hear about work," she replies carefully as they walk back to the car.

"Why? Did Grandma want you to not be a cop?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Elliot said-"

Sighing, she feels her brows form the beginnings of a very strong scowl. "Elliot shouldn't be talking to you about things like that."

"Why?"

"It's ancient history. We'll talk about it later."

"Don't be mad at Elliot."

"Sophie, I don't want you to worry about what I say or don't say to Grandma, okay? Just know that I have my reasons."

"What are they?"

Olivia hesitates. "I'll… tell you when you're older."

"I'm not a little kid," Sophie retorts defiantly.

No, you're not, Olivia wants to say. You're taller and smarter and more beautiful than I'd ever dreamed you'd be. You scare the living shit out of me, kid.

"We'll talk later," she reiterates.

The drive home is silent.

Her mother's book, untouched save for Sophie's accidental artwork, has remained at the bottom of her bedside drawer for seven years.

Until.

"Goddammit," Elliot swears, his salt-and-pepper head bent over her bedside table as he rifles through her things. "Olivia!"

"I'm not deaf," she grouses from the bathroom.

"Where are my glasses?"

"Check your coat, Captain," she mutters sarcastically.

He ignores her jab at his latest promotion. "I did. You sure they wouldn't be in here?"

"I'm sure."

"Fuck," he swears again. Then: "Oh."

"Find 'em?"

"No. You still have this?"

"Have what?"

"Your mom's book."

"Oh. Uh, yeah."

"You want it to stay in here?"

"Yeah, just leave it."

"It's getting pretty old. You might want to have it—_there_ they are."

"What?"

"My glasses."

"Oh. Where were they?"

"Your bedstand."

"Hm."

"You were wrong."

"Kiss my ass, Stabler."

Had they the time, she's sure he might have. Instead, a well-placed swat on her behind suffices before he leaves for work.

"Do I have a double chin?" Sophie asks one day in the car.

Olivia looks away from the road briefly, letting her eyes survey her daughter's slender fourteen year old neck. "Not at all," she replies, confused. "Why?"

"Morgan said that she has a double chin because her dad has one," Sophie answers, her voice uncertain. "And Dad… Dad's got a weird neck, like a turkey or something."

Olivia's own laugh surprises her.

"Please, please don't tell Dad," Sophie pleads. "I just don't want my neck to be like… _that_."

"You're beautiful," Olivia pronounces firmly. "You'll always be beautiful."

"You have to say that 'cause you're my mom," Sophie groans.

"It's true. I'm a cop, so you know-"

"-you're not lying. Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Yeah? Well when have I ever lied to you before?"

"Never."

Sophie sits quietly for a moment. "How did Grandma really die?"

The question sits between them like a grenade and Olivia's lungs deflate for several long seconds, her brain working overtime to construct an acceptable response.

Nothing comes.

"I…" she falters. "Sophia, I don't think this is-"

"You'll tell me later," her daughter grouses, flipping the visor back into place. "I know."

The tension in the car is palpable. She knows exactly where Sophie gets the desire for answers.

"Tonight," Olivia promises. "We'll talk tonight."


	54. Epilogue, Part II: Excelsior

**Here it is.**

**Please note that this chapter jumps around, time-wise. You're smart. You'll figure it out. Longer notes at the bottom.**

_**Excelsior **_**– "Ever Upward"**

_Our little systems have their day;_

_They have their day and cease to be:_

_They are but broken lights of thee,_

_And thou, O Lord, art more than they._

from "In Memoriam, AHH" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

She sits, silent, and stares at the severity of the grey stone that marks her mother's final resting place.

There's so much she wants to tell her.

"The Truth shall set you free," Father McHugh has quoted on several occasions.

Right now, Olivia's not so sure. Her daughter's bedroom door looms in front of her like a billboard ad for Judgment Day.

Don't be dramatic, she scolds herself. Just go in there and talk to her.

And say what? Serena's voice asks snarkily.

She has a vague idea outlined in her head:

First: Sophia, fourteen years ago, your single, desperate, horny mother had a one-night stand that turned into a five-week stand with an editor who didn't have the sense to buy some name-brand condoms that goddamn worked, and – funny story – you really only exist because he's a cheapskate. Anyways, I'm sorry that your father's a wannabe-womanizing moron with a turkey neck who calls about once a month. Also, sorry your mother is also a moron for having slept with him instead of holding out to get knocked up by someone better. Like a rocket scientist with a trust fund who knew how to be a father. Que sera, sera, though. Right?

Also, remember when you would ask, "Why don't I have a grandma or grandpa?" and I answered by saying that your grandparents were in Heaven? Well, I wouldn't hold your breath on that one, because if Heaven exists, my parents might not be the best candidates for entry. Grandpa's an alleged rapist whom Uncle Simon swears was a good guy – but you know Uncle Simon – and Grandma… well, Grandma might not do too well in Heaven, what with the lack of vodka and all. Also, Father McHugh talks a lot about the poor in spirit being closer to God, and if the poor are in Heaven… well, Grandma Serena hates riffraff. Also, technically, she didn't believe in God or Heaven, so….

And about your own mother: She's currently embroiled in a fifteen-year-long semi-extramarital affair that officially got off the ground after a screaming match in the precinct locker room. Don't worry, I most definitely was not pregnant with you when Elliot and I first had sex. Actually, I was, but let's not focus on that because yeah, it's a little weird, and besides the point is that marriage didn't work out so well for El the first time and I don't goddamn want a husband, and things are fine the way they are and it's silly to conform to societal norms for no reason when we both have excellent health coverage through the department and my taxes aren't too bad on my own… but I digress.

Anyways, Sophia, don't get involved with married men. Ever. Too much heartache. I'm glad we had this talk. Goodnight!

Okay, that last one wasn't entirely fair. Elliot's many things, but he's not a cheater. But how to explain that to her daughter?

Inside this room, Olivia tells herself, is a hormonal teenager who, if her life were a pie, hates her four out of six pieces of it. And this hormonal teenager has questions. Questions that only Olivia can answer.

The loneliness of parenting has never felt so severe.

The truth, she'd promised her daughter.

She would tell the truth.

With a heavy hand, she raises her arm and knocks on the door.

"Sophie," she calls quietly. "You ready to talk?"

The door opens immediately.

Later that night, the apartment hums with the sounds of a typical Friday evening: the quiet of the central heater and the muted bass of Sophia's music from down the hall, its cadence sounding with the thump of a slow pulse.

Olivia stares at the ceiling, feeling the last remnants of her energy slowly seep away, into the mattress beneath her. Heightened emotional exchanges have always taken it out of her, and if there's one thing that fourteen-year-old girls have mastered, it's heightened emotional exchanges.

She feels low, and clean, like someone who's risked it all and lost, but can live with the nobility of having tried. Logically, she knows it's impossible for Sophia to never speak to her again. After all, she's wanting a new phone for her birthday, and money doesn't grow on trees. But the look on her daughter's face as Olivia had told her what she'd wanted to know…

"So, basically, I've never known anything about my own family," Sophia had snapped.

Olivia knows the feeling well.

She takes a shuddering breath and tries to will away the dampness on her cheeks and temples as one hand unconsciously drifts to her middle and presses down, fingers resting over the sacred place of her daughter's beginning. Her womb is merely decorative now, but still aches from time to time with the memories of its best and only occupant. She remembers a time when she'd thought pregnancy would be the hardest part, and her hand flexes at the thought.

From down the hall, the heartbeat of her daughter's life continues its hushed rhythm.

Serena's quiet rage, her ire at having her own secrets and shames so indiscriminately revealed, coats the muscles of Olivia's heart. I'm sorry, she thinks in a wretched cadence, over and over and over. I'm sorry.

She was her mother's blessing, and her mother's curse. Her onus and her only confidant. Her scapegoat and her savior. She knows that now.

She's seen it in her own daughter's eyes.

What is this part of motherhood, she wonders, when doing the right thing always makes her feel like she's doing everything wrong?

Beside her, his hands folded across his own stomach, Elliot is quiet, waiting. He's always waiting for her.

"How can one person make me feel so… awful?" she breathes.

"Girls," Elliot murmurs, "are brutal."

She nods. 'Brutal' is a good word.

"But you know Sophie adores you," he says after a moment. Her breath hitches, but she says nothing, so he continues. "You should hear how she's always talked about you, especially when she was younger. You couldn't do anything wrong."

The times, they are a-changin', she thinks miserably.

"She looked at me like I was—" She stops, exhaling a shuddering breath. "Like I was… just… a _whore_."

She feels his frown without looking. "Why would she do that?"

Oh boy.

"I told her about, uh, Kurt. How we met. And then you, and how we… got here."

He's silent.

"I just—I don't know, maybe she's too young, and I shouldn't have told her all that stuff—"

"Liv…"

She stops.

"It's gonna be okay," he says quietly.

"I don't know how to do this."

"No one does."

"I should have never told her you were married when we—"

She feels him stiffen. "What? You told her—?"

"_Yeah_, I told her."

"Why did you do that?"

"She wanted to know. Christ, make me feel worse, why don't you."

He clears his throat. "You told her about the locker room?"

"What?" she hisses. The look on his face says it all, and she slaps his arm. "Oh my god, Elliot, no. I have _some_ maternal instincts. I told her that I had feelings, or whatever, while you were still married. After Kathy left. And that we, I don't know, decided to be together. I didn't go into details."

His wry amusement at her rambling is obvious. "'Feelings,' huh?"

She swats his arm away as it stretches across her torso. "Shut up."

"Okay," he says easily, rolling over and pulling her gracelessly into him. His stubble scrapes her neck as he settles into her side.

Despite the recent yelling match with her daughter, she reluctantly feels her mood begin to lighten as his lips press against her neck. Neither she nor Elliot are much for cuddling, but he occasionally drags her into an ursine embrace in bed, his arms and legs trapping her effectively against him as he presses his mouth to the skin on her neck and chest. Sometimes he does it to piss her off, but she knows what she's up to now, and she's grateful for the distraction.

…Until he insistently flexes his erection into her hip.

"Really?" she huffs.

He shrugs. "What? You look good."

She rolls her eyes. "Christ, Elliot—I'm _crying._"

"I've got a thing for the sad girls," he quips, moving on top of her. She sighs and lets her legs fall apart to accommodate him, feeling her body respond to the thrust of his hips in spite of herself.

"Sex with you doesn't solve the problem down the hall," she grumbles in a last-ditch effort to dampen his mood. His movement stills, his expression serious.

"People aren't problems, Liv. Your kid's not always gonna believe you hung the moon. Deal with it." He pushes into her again, hitting a spot that elicits that damn whimpering sound in the back of her throat. "You wanna talk about it some more?" he murmurs flirtatiously.

Shaking her head, she wraps her legs around his waist, his movements making her forget everything for just a little while.

***  
She wasn't sure how she'd expected Sophie to act in light of the family history recently revealed to her, but what she sees when she walks into the kitchen the morning after their talk isn't it.

"What's going on?" she asks groggily.

Sophie looks up from the stove, all innocence. "I'm making breakfast." Speechless, Olivia stares, incredulity and hope aligning in the chambers of her heart. "What?" Sophie asks defensively.

"Ah… I didn't expect to see you up so early. After last night, I thought you might… keep to yourself for awhile."

Sophie looks back down to the skillet and shrugs.

"Look, Soph… I know all of that was a lot to take in, about my—about Grandma. And your dad and Elliot."

"It's fine," she mumbles.

"It's okay to be upset. You can be mad at me, if you need to."

Her daughter looks at her strangely. "I'm not mad at you, Mom."

"You seemed pretty upset last night."

"Yeah, but… it's whatever."

It's too early in the morning for teenage-speak. "And by that you mean…?"

"I don't know… just, like, all that stuff… it sucks. But it's not like it means anything now."

"Oh? How do you figure?"

"I don't have any secret brothers and sisters, and Dad's not an alien or a spy or whatever. And Elliot's cool. But I'm still me, right?"

Simultaneously elated and flabbergasted, Olivia desperately wills Elliot to wake up and come into the kitchen. She needs a witness to corroborate what she's hearing. "Uh… yeah. Yes. Yes, you are."

"Yeah, so… I mean, if that's it. Like, there aren't any more weird family secrets, right?"

Elliot and I had illicit sexual relations against a row of lockers while I was pregnant, Olivia thinks.

"No," is what she says.

The truth will set them free, but full disclosure will only ruin breakfast.

"El," she hisses.

"Mmgrmp."

Eye roll. "Elliot, wake up."

"Five more minutes," he mumbles, turning away from her.

Oh dear god. "Elliot!" she says loudly, grabbing his shoulder and turning him onto his back. Bleary-eyed, he stares up at her, scowling.

"If you came in here for _that_, I'm gonna need a few minutes."

She eyes the tented sheet skeptically. "Oh, really? It looks ready now."

"Just because that works doesn't mean the rest of me does," he groans. "You wore me out last night, woman."

"You started it, Mr. I-Have-A-Thing-For-Sad-Girls."

"Yeah, well… you're smiling now. And I'm going back to sleep."

She punches his arm lightly, smirking at his annoyed wince. "Don't go back to sleep. Sophie's making us breakfast."

"Okay—oh."

"Yeah, 'oh.' She's acting fine."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"She's making you breakfast." Olivia nods. "Well, how about that. What's she making?"

"Eggs, fruit and blueberry muffins."

"Muffins done yet?"

"She just put them in the oven."

"Great. Quickie?"

"I thought you were too sore."

He sighs the heavy sigh of a martyr. "Get on top and I'll see what I can work out. I'm not promising anything mind-blowing, though."

She snorts. "I just came in here to see what you thought about how Soph is acting."

"If she's fine, then great."

"I know it's great, I just expected her to… I don't know, act out or something." She sighs heavily. "That kid never does what I think she'll do."

"Welcome to parenting a teenage girl," Elliot mumbles sleepily, rolling away from her. "Wake me up when breakfast is ready."

She envies Sophia's nonchalance about the past.

Olivia thinks of her mother often. Words like 'addiction' and 'co-dependency' and 'emotional blackmail' run through her head as she remembers little details like the despair in Serena's eyes the day Olivia had left for college. Her expression as her daughter had revealed that it was time for her to leave, to go out into the world and make something of herself.

Her mother's smile as she cleaned Olivia's nails as a child.

The frightening scowl when she'd found her daughter with a much older man.

The disapproval that flashed whenever she saw her daughter's badge.

The fear that surfaced when Olivia wasn't looking down both ways of the street.

In her dreams, the desolate look on Serena's face at the idea that her daughter would forget her _berceuse_.

She's known her mother was neither completely monster nor martyr, but had come to think of her as a combination of both, but now...

Remember, she hears Serena say, and maybe it's a fragmented memory from one of those long-ago cold autumn mornings when she'd leave her lunchbox on the counter, but she takes it at face value.

She remembers.

Awake, she breathes, savoring the last wisps of the dream memory, its cozy tinge evaporating in the cold blue light of the moon streaming through the window. She vaguely remembers the incident, of slinking away to her room in search of a game that she couldn't lose while her mother finished reading on the couch.

Her mother:

Not hateful, or evil.

Not malicious. Well, not always.

Just… unhappy. And empty. And always a little lost.

Lost: trapped in a role that forced her into uncharted, terrifying depths. Being made to constantly to live outside of her element.

The cold intellectual, who strove only to exist in the aloof cocoon of academia; and the insecure woman who did not know how to live, how to raise a daughter in the world beyond her anthologies of poetry.

The bewildered scholar; the absent mother.

Cracked on the inside. And so, so alone.

Olivia lies awake for the rest of the early morning hours, her thoughts broken only by the screech of her alarm.

I'm still me, she thinks, her voice an echo of Sophie's.

Ten-year-old Sophia loved movies, driving Olivia crazy with her propensity to break away from her and Elliot as soon as a Redbox was in sight.

"You can't just run off like that!" Olivia yelled on more than one occasion. "What if someone grabbed you?"

"I'm sorry," was Sophie's response. "Can we rent 'Pride & Prejudice'?"

Olivia didn't always say yes, but the days that she did ended with her and Sophia snuggled on the couch eating popcorn while Elliot made himself scarce, citing a dislike of 'chick flicks.'

"I want to marry someone like Mr. Darcy when I grow up," Sophia said on several occasions, oblivious to the tightening of her mother's heart at the thought. "But not for a long time."

Amused in spite of herself, Olivia would smirk. "Oh yeah? How long?"

"I don't know. Twenty years or something. Or when you and Elliot die so I don't have to leave you."

Offhanded allusions to her own demise aside, Olivia laughed. Those days were the best ones.

Her mother checks her out of school after lunch, leveling a stern look at the school secretary who has the audacity to politely inquire as to why Olivia is leaving so early.

"That's none of your business," Serena answers frostily. "But if you must know, there's been a death in the family." The beleaguered secretary's condolences are dismissed with a sophisticated wave of Serena's hand before she herds her daughter to the car.

"Who died?" Olivia asks suspiciously.

Serena shrugs. Minutes later, her mother buys two matinee tickets for "All Quiet on the Western Front."

Her mother has always loved Ernest Borgnine as passionately as she now hates Richard Thomas – a fact she expresses loudly enough to earn a few annoyed shushes from fellow moviegoers.

"Shut up," Serena snaps at the irritated man in front of them. "Any adaptation of Remarque shouldn't include the goon that played someone named 'John-Boy.'"

The man sputters uselessly before moving several rows down. Serena elbows Olivia with a triumphant smirk. "Idiot," she mouths, pointing at him.

Olivia giggles, enjoying the warm glow of being in on the joke. She walks on air for the rest of the day.

Adaptations of Austen often ran later than bedtime, and the credit music invariably played over Sophie's soft snores.

Olivia often took those moments to watch her daughter's slumbering form, marveling at the rise and fall of her small chest and the perfection of the long lashes that rested against her cheek. The light from the television surreally illuminated Sophie's features, and Olivia fought the same tightening in her chest as she prepared to move the little girl to her bed.

Don't leave me, she thought desperately, before chastising herself.

She's a child, she told herself. Stop worrying about the future.

Sophia was already asleep by the time she was tucked in, but her mother still quietly hummed her a lullaby.

It's late, and Serena's vodka-scented breathing flutters against Olivia's ear as she lies, sprawled and spread, on Olivia's twin bed. The melody of an old lullaby seems to linger in the corners of the room as Olivia fruitlessly attempts to shift out from under her mother.

Dusk covers the valley, stars slowly come into sight...

"You're not my dad!" Sophia screams at Elliot, her beautiful features mottled with rage and teenage indignation.

"Yeah? Well you're out of line," he shouts back.

This is Olivia's living nightmare.

Her daughter is seventeen, beautiful, intelligent, popular… and sneaky.

And, on occasions like this, ill-tempered.

"Sophia," Olivia begins, rubbing her temples in frustration. "You snuck out after your curfew and took my car without permission. You're not the victim here."

"I'm not a child!" she wails.

"Then stop acting like one," Elliot snaps, his paternal fury visibly – to Olivia, at least – tempered with worry. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I _told_ you guys tonight was important to me! Dylan's band doesn't get a gig like this all the time and if you would have just let me _go—"_

"It's a _bar_ and you're _underage_," he thunders. The veins in his neck and forehead are working overtime.

"I'll be eighteen in forty-nine days!"

"Oh my god, you two!" Olivia yells. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Everyone shut up!"

They shut up, staring at her like she's the crazy one.

These are the worst days.

It's late again, and young Olivia's attempt to crawl out from under the shadow of her mother's presence is thwarted by Serena's drunken plea:

"Don't leave me."

The desperation in the request is enough for Olivia to step away from the door, curling her fingers around the car keys to avoid making any more noise than necessary. With a sigh, she sinks onto the couch with Serena, once again lending her shoulder as a place for her mother to sleep it off.

She looks out the window and wonders how it is possible to breathe so deep, so quickly, and still feel like she's gasping for air.

The press of people almost pulls her in the opposite direction as she moves quickly down the auditorium aisle in search of her mother.

"Olivia!" someone calls. She turns to see Mrs. Holbrook, her second-grade teacher, reaching out for her hand. "Are you looking for your mom?"

Olivia nods.

"She's over here."

She leads Olivia through the people exiting the building en masse until they're in front of her mother. Her mother who sighs wearily as Olivia and her teacher approach.

"There you are," she says tiredly.

"Did you hear the poem?" Olivia asks tentatively. "I did 'Crossing the Bar.'"

Mrs. Holbrook beams down at her. "You did a wonderful job."

Serena looks at both of them for a long moment, her weary gaze darkening minutely. "Yes, well," she says after an uncomfortable silence. "We need to go home."

It's a sweltering August Saturday when they move Sophia into her dorm in Ithaca. Sophia Benson, with her knack for writing and her love of all things literary – something she's inherited from Serena – has managed a hefty scholarship to Cornell.

"I can't believe I'm here," Sophie breathes, awed and reverent at the old stone buildings.

"It's beautiful," Olivia agrees, trying to ignore the rip in her chest at the thought of leaving her daughter within the confines of those old, cold walls.

Elliot, who had spent the majority of Sophia's last two years of high school furiously scoffing at private school tuition costs, remains suspiciously silent as he pulls Olivia's modest sedan with its small U-Haul trailer into a parking lot full of Mercedes and Audi logos.

Later, only Olivia catches his eye roll after watching one of the incoming freshmen girls bid a tearful farewell to her dog – a rat-like, shivering Chihuahua cowering into the arms of the girl's father.

"Take good care of Lucrevius," she sobs onto her mother's designer-clad shoulder, oblivious to the annoyed, box-laden Elliot maneuvering around her family.

Olivia pinches Elliot's arm as they moved past the heart-wrenching tableau. "Shut it," she mouths.

He responds with another eye roll, which she ignores. She gets it. Elliot doesn't get sad, he gets cranky.

Either way, he behaves himself, keeping his blue-collar, egalitarian mumblings to a minimum as they unload and unpack boxes which encompass the sum total of Sophia's eighteen years, minus the few items left behind in the Queens apartment. Sophie, oblivious in the way that only excited children can be, throws herself into the nesting process.

"I live here now!" she exclaims, clapping her hands ecstatically as she surveys the finished product of her first home-away-from-home.

Beside her, Olivia flinches.

Don't leave me, she thinks, and it's her own voice entirely.

Sophia turns to her mother, her face alight with excitement. "Well… what do you think?"

It's awful, she thinks. It's alien. It's not home. This isn't where you belong.

You're just a baby, she thinks. You're too young for this. Wait a year, just one more year. Give me more time.

It's only on the second floor, she thinks. Too dangerous. Someone could still break in if they really tried.

In a split second, she envisions everything that could go wrong. Every fear she's ever had for the girl beside her is packed into the space of a heartbeat.

Don't leave me, she thinks again, and she's never understood Serena so well.

With a breath, Olivia turns her head to meet her daughter's questioning gaze.

"It's perfect," she says quietly.

And she means it.

She leaves her daughter behind the next day, her eyes trained on the grey and green of the campus as Elliot drives them away, away, away.

Her grip turns the knuckles on his right hand white, and she doesn't even try to cry quietly.

Now you know, Serena's voice whispers.

In the end, the four and a half hours between mother and daughter is traversed regularly; with a few exceptions, she sees Sophia once a month. The visits to Ithaca become an ingrained part of her life, something she both anticipates and dreads in equal measures: the chance to see her daughter again, and the prospect of once more leaving her behind.

It is during Sunday lunch on one of these visits, made by Olivia during Sophie's junior year, on which her daughter reveals a secret of her own.

"I hope you're not mad," Sophie begins hesitantly, nervously playing with her water glass. "But I've been writing in Grandma's journal."

Dumbfounded, Olivia stares.

"You know, the leather one."

Yes, she knows the leather one. It was the only thing that ever made her feel like she knew Serena as more than the drunk, reluctant mother.

Sophia is staring at her worriedly. "You're mad. I knew you might get a little mad, but I just wanted—"

"I'm not mad," Olivia interrupts flatly. "I'm not mad. I guess I'm… surprised, to say the least. I didn't even know you had it."

"Surprised," Sophie repeats.

"Yeah, surprised. Mainly as to _why_."

"You'll think it's stupid."

"Try me."

With a sigh, Sophia sits back in her chair, her clear, grey eyes assessing her mother's expression before continuing. "It's… well, this is going to sound crazy. But it's the only way I feel like I can talk to her. You know how you used to take me to her grave every once in a while?"

Olivia nods.

"Yeah, well I can't really do that now. And I didn't realize how much I needed that to feel… connected to her, or whatever. I don't know. I just… I've felt awful about it because I don't want you to be mad at me, but I thought… I thought you would understand."

For several moments, the only sound around them is the conversation of the other patrons and the clinking of silverware and ice cubes.

Finally, Olivia nods. "I understand," she says slowly.

Sophia's expression is wary. "You do?"

"I think so." She clears her throat, uncomfortable with the wave of emotion that's threatening to overcome her in the middle of an Ithaca diner. "What, um… what do you write in there? If you don't mind my asking."

Sophie shrugs easily, smiling. "Poetry. Random thoughts, you know… little things, here and there. I wrote something the other day… um, it's not like, great or anything. But I wanted you to read it, hence the whole..." she waves her hand around. "Journal conversation."

And now her notoriously private daughter wants her to read something she's written. Unsure she can process another surprise, Olivia nods dumbly, watching as her daughter grins and reaches into her bag to produce the leatherbound book in question. She quickly flips to a page and holds the journal out to Olivia.

"Don't read anything else," Sophia warns. "It's private."

So was my mother's journal, Olivia thinks dryly, but wisely says nothing, instead taking the book away from the slight tremble of her daughter's hand and looking at the page in front of her. The words on it look hastily written, penned in Sophia's feminine loops and slashes on the aging paper.

"'Some things are better left unsaid,'" Olivia begins reading. "'Mere words upon a tombstone— '"

"Oh god, Mom," her daughter interjects hurriedly. "Not out loud. Read it to yourself."

Relieved, Olivia does just that, her eyes hungrily taking in the glimpse into the graceful depths of her daughter's heart.

By the time she looks up to meet Sophia's anxious face, her cheeks are suspiciously damp.

"What do you think?" Sophia asks warily. "It's not a huge deal, especially compared to some of the stuff Grandma wrote, but—"

"It's lovely," Olivia interrupts quietly, fighting back that damned lump in her throat. "It's lovely, and so are you."

That day, the beginnings of an idea form in Olivia's mind on her way back to New York, her daughter's words swirling around in her consciousness like a benediction. A practical woman, Olivia is not prone to flights of fancy; she's always been the prose to her mother's and daughter's poetic leanings.

She shares the idea with Elliot that night, watching as his face falls into the grim lines that age him.

"This is all a little premature, isn't it?" he asks quietly.

"Not until you need it," she quips. "Everybody dies."

"Yeah, so get a bigger life insurance policy," he retorts. "Don't plan every detail of your funeral."

"It's not my funeral, it's my headstone. Besides, I'm the one who has to be stuck under it for the rest of eternity. I should get a say."

Despite Elliot's grumblings about tempting fate – he's especially Irish that way – she makes the necessary adjustments to her file marked 'Estate/Funeral Details' and sends a prayer to Whoever Lives Upstairs that she won't need it for at least several more decades.

Looking back, she can see her life as a series of segments.

The dependent daughter

The experimental college student

The terrified rookie

Elliot's partner

The terrified rookie, Part II: Motherhood

Elliot's partner, part II: Sex After 40

The harried mother of a teenager

The wistful mother of a college student

And today, a new chapter: The proud mother of a college graduate.

Awkwardly sandwiched between Kurt and Elliot, she strains for a sight of her daughter in the sea of black matriculation caps and gowns.

"There she is," Elliot murmurs.

"Where?"

He points. "See? She's looking for you."

Olivia follows his gaze, finally spotting Sophia's face a moment before her daughter sees them. Grey eyes meet brown ones across the small sea of people; Olivia smiles, waves at Sophia and fights the urge to pinch herself.

Is this really happening? she asks herself.

Elliot proposes to her over dinner on her sixtieth birthday, and scowls when she turns him down.

"We've been dating for twenty goddamn years," he grouses, stabbing at his dessert with a ferocity that amuses her.

"Nineteen," she corrects. "And it's not dating if you never take me out. Besides, don't act offended – I know what you're trying to do."

There's a gleam in his eyes as he shoves a piece of chocolate cake into his mouth. "Oh yeah?" he asks around his food. "What's that?"

"You want a piece of the pay-out on my life insurance policy."

He's still annoyed, but responds to her joke easily. "I won't see a dime of it once they know I tossed you in the river."

Brian McKinney is tall, intelligent, attractive, and hopelessly in love with Sophia Benson.

"I don't like him," Elliot tells Olivia the night Sophia makes their introductions.

"Why not?"

"Because He's sleazy."

"Sleazy. Okay, how is he sleazy?"

"Did you look at his shoes?"

"No."

"Wingtips."

"Are you kidding?"

"No."

"Elliot."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"I'll shut up, but I'm telling you right now, that relationship isn't going anywhere."

The wedding takes place in a chapel that seats only a hundred, but the aisle stretches for what seems like miles as Olivia prepares to walk toward the altar. Beside her, Sophia clutches her hand, her nervous breath gently puffing through her veil.

"Oh god," she breathes, over and over. "Oh god oh god oh god."

"Calm down," Olivia whispers, squeezing her hand as Sophie's matron of honor starts down the aisle.

"Oh god oh god oh god oh god—"

"Sophia Grace."

Her daughter turns to look at her, and behind the veil is not a young woman with Serena's eyes and a degree from Cornell; instead, there stands the little girl who fell asleep on movie nights and who used to ask Olivia to draw smiley faces on her band-aids.

"Mom," she whispers, and the sound seems to tremble.

Don't leave me, that small voice inside Olivia screams. If the years have taught her one thing, it's how to ignore that damned, desperate sound in her own head.

"You look beautiful," Olivia whispers back.

"I'm scared."

From inside, the opening notes of the march begin. Olivia can hear the creaking of wooden pews as people stand for the bride's grand entrance.

Sophia hears it too. "I'm scared," she repeats.

Olivia looks at her one last time, her baby girl looking out at her from behind the eyes of the stunning woman in white.

"Sure you are," she replies with a confidence she does not feel. She squeezes her daughter's hand once more "That's how you know he's worth it."

At her words, Sophia exhales unsteadily.

"This is it," Olivia whispers. "Ready?"

Her daughter blinks

Smiles…

And begins to walk.

Olivia marries Elliot two weeks later in a courthouse ceremony that takes ten minutes.

"Happy now?" she asks dryly as they make their way down the steps of City Hall.

Elliot shrugs. "I knew I'd wear you down."

"Sure you did. It only took you twenty-three years."

"You're a tough nut to crack," he concedes.

She chuckles, her steps automatically synching with his before a realization halts her. Oblivious, Elliot keeps walking.

"Stop," she calls.

He walks back to the spot where she's frozen, frowning. "What's wrong?"

"We're married now."

He's looking at her like she's an imbecile. "Yeah..."

"So things are different now."

"I'm not following."

"When we walk down the street, shouldn't you be holding my hand or something?"

His frown deepens. "Do you _want_ me to hold your hand?"

"Yes—"

"Because I tried to hold your hand that one time and you said it felt awkward."

She rolls her eyes. "If memory serves, we were at Lizzie's wedding and your _wife_ was there."

"Ex-wife," he corrects with a wink. "You're the wife now."

"That's my _point_."

He glares at her for a moment before something shifts in his eyes and his face breaks into a sharky grin. "Alright, tough nut. You win. Olivia Stabler—"

"Benson," she says quickly.

"Alright. Olivia Benson," he says, and his clipped Queens accent takes her back to the days of shared cars and adjoined desks and long nights of wanting to beat him to a pulp. He smirks, and it's home. "Can I hold your hand?"

Her grin is his answer.

"You did it," Serena says flatly, her expression frozen in disbelief.

"I did."

"What happened to feminism? What happened to not needing a man? What happened to the woman I raised to be _independent_?"

"I raised myself," is Olivia's calm reply. "And I don't need him, I want him." The wind blows easily between them, and it feels like freedom. "Besides," she continues. "I'm still me."

The spark in Serena's gaze could be interpreted as approval.

She is being rudely jostled awake.

"…got a seventy-two year old white female… unconscious… thready pulse…"

Her eyes flash open. Instead of her bedroom ceiling, there is metal and tubes.

Ambulance, she thinks.

My baby, she thinks.

My baby.

Her eyes rove around her, seeking something reassuring. A pair of blue eyes catches her vision. Who is that sad old man? she wonders, but she knows the answer before the thought is finished.

Elliot.

She remembers another time, just like this, when they were younger and her body was capable of more than keeping just itself alive.

Remember when…? she wants to say to Elliot, but her mouth doesn't work.

She focuses on that for a moment before the feeling of being pulled under overwhelms her.

Breathe, she thinks. Breathe.

The years have weighed down her heartbeats, and her pulse keeps going like a runner struggling through a deep bog.

"Liv," she hears, and opens her eyes.

Blue. His eyes have always been so blue.

"Elliot," she breathes.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

"You had a stroke," he says, and she can hear the worry in his voice. "Did you feel sick?"

"I felt old," she replies weakly. Her words are slurred.

His answering smile is thin.

"This is no way to live," Serena huffs indignantly. "You can't even talk."

"I can talk," Olivia snaps. "My mouth just doesn't keep up when I'm awake."

"At least you can still move around," her mother concedes. "Imagine having to make Elliot and Sophia wipe your ass."

"Don't say that," she says sharply, but it's one of her worst fears: her mind, trapped in a body that won't cooperate. Having her speech slightly slurred by her stroke is bad enough, but the potential of anything worse keeps her up at night.

"There's about a forty percent risk of another potentially fatal stroke within ten years," her doctor told them.

If it happens, it'd better kill her. Anything less will just piss her off. She tells Serena this.

Her mother laughs.

Sophia comes over frequently to talk with and eventually read to her, as long conversation often becomes frustrating for Olivia.

"So, Dad finally came through on the job thing," she announces.

Olivia's eyes snap to her own. How? she thinks.

"Jill Abramson at TIME called me this afternoon. Dad sent her my portfolio last week and she wants me to come in for an interview."

"That's great," Olivia says encouragingly.

"Yeah, I'm excited. I'll let you know how it goes. What do you want to read tonight?" Olivia shrugs. "Great. Poetry it is, then."

Olivia smiles, never failing to be amused at the similarities between her mother and her daughter.

"Which poet?" she asks Sophia, grimacing at the sound.

The words are so _clear_ in her mind…

"Cummings," Sophia replies easily, seemingly unaffected by her mother's impediment as she pulls out a slim red volume. "I'm reading him for fun."

For fun, Olivia wants to scoff. She wants to tease her daughter for the literary nerd tendencies she's never shaken.

Instead, she listens.

"_since feeling is first _

_who pays any attention _

_to the syntax of things _

_will never wholly kiss you;_

_wholly to be a fool _

_while Spring is in the world_

_my blood approves, _

_and kisses are a far better fate _

_than wisdom _

_lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry _

_-the best gesture of my brain is less than _

_your eyelids' flutter which says_

_we are for each other: then _

_laugh, leaning back in my arms _

_for life's not a paragraph_

_And death i think is no parenthesis_."

"Lovely," Olivia says clearly.

"'No parenthesis,'" Serena quotes dreamily. "Do you believe that?"

"I've been talking to my dead mother in a rowboat for the last thirty years. I believe it."

"That poem was fairly contrary to the very nature of Cummings's writing, you know," her mother continues, ignoring her sarcasm. "He used incorrect syntax to show his feelings in his poems, but that one stated that life could not be captured in writing."

"You believe that? Weren't you in love with reading and writing?"

"I'm still in love with reading and writing," Serena retorts. "And yes, I do believe it. Don't you?"

Olivia is silent, her own memories flooding through her mind's eye like rushing water through a sluice gate.

Four years later, she does not feel the second stroke coming.

She squeezes Elliot's hand.

It's the last thing she ever does.

The years glide by, as they tend to do, and it is a crisp autumn Saturday on which Elliot Stabler is laid to rest.

His children have honored his wishes, adhering closely to the plans Sophia had found in her mother's 'Estate/Funeral Details' file. Heart failure, they'd all been told. Your father's lucky to have lived this long with arteries like that.

Step-father, she almost says, but stops herself.

"Elliot's heart is big and fat," she remembers her mother complaining on several occasions.

The memory makes her laugh as she cries.

So now she stands in silence on a green hill speckled with headstones, her fingers wrapped tightly around her step-sister Maureen's hand.

Everything to say has been said, their spouses and extended relations have gone back to Kathy Stabler's home, and now only the children are left standing, avoiding the inevitable drive away from their father.

"I always liked Olivia," Elizabeth says quietly, breaking the silence.

Sophia never knows what to say when Elliot's children discuss her mother, and she now settles for a quiet "Thanks," her eyes flicking involuntarily to the headstone beside Elliot's. "I miss her."

I miss her, she scoffs inwardly. She makes a career out of expressing various points on the spectrum of human emotion, striving to find new and better ways to communicate concepts and facts to her readers, and the best she can do in speaking of her mother is a measly 'I miss her.'

But she does miss her. Achingly, agonizingly misses her.

"That's a lovely poem," Maureen whispers. "Did you write that?"

It takes Sophia a moment to realize she's not the only one staring at her mother's headstone. "Oh, that," she says lamely. "Yes. I wrote it in college."

A peaceful silence overtakes them once again, and Sophia finds herself wondering how uncomfortable Elliot would have been, were he alive, to be surrounded by a group of people that had nothing left to say.

"Well, I think we're going to head back," Richard Stabler says after several minutes. She marvels at how his widow's peak makes his resemblance to his father even more striking. "Mom's probably getting worried."

"We'll come with you," Maureen offers. "Soph, are you coming to the house?"

But Sophia isn't ready. "You guys go," she says quietly. "Brian's there. I'll be over soon."

Maureen squeezes her hand one last time, and Sophia is overcome with gratitude at the sense of family she finds in the Stabler clan.

They leave quietly, and it's only moments before she's alone with her mother and Elliot. There's nothing else to tell them that she doesn't say aloud every day – they have to know how much she misses them. Instead, she lowers herself to the cool grass, tucking her feet underneath her and remembering things that both lighten and sharpen her grief.

Her eyes trace the words on Olivia's marker almost unconsciously, the words so familiar that they have ceased to have any meaning.

Read them out loud, she remembers one of her professors telling her. When words blur together, read them out loud and listen to your voice.

She feels silly, but begins to do just that.

"_Some things are better left unsaid_," she begins.

Moments later, she has heard her own words, and remembers.

_Some things are better left unsaid _

_Mere words on a tombstone_

_Shall not be my legacy to mankind._

_I trust when men think of me,_

_Scribblings in a graveyard_

_Will not be sought for rememberings_

_That should be closer at hand._

_I know now why_

_Visitings of final resting places_

_Bring heartache._

_A living bloom clipped to show reverence_

_Fails in its duty—_

_One life given_

_To one already lived—and gone._"

**Special thanks to Mousie962, who has beta'd the majority of this story. Any mistakes are mine.**

**Thank you for reading. I truly appreciate your patience with this story. Three years! And you've been so encouraging through all of it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.**

**I have some material that has not been included in the original story. Reviewers who leave a review and their email address will receive these drabbles and outtakes, as well as any future one-shots or outtakes I do of this story. **

**One more thing – I don't do music recs, but here are two songs for this chapter, and I suppose for the story in general, that I've listened to constantly:**

"**Blue Mind" by Alexi Murdoch**

"**Girl in the War" by Josh Ritter**

**Again, thank you for reading and reviewing. Your time has made my time worth it.**

**God bless,**

**Hollelujah**


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